


Wheel of the Year

by panharmonium



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Ealdor, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:47:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 101,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23788795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panharmonium/pseuds/panharmonium
Summary: It's the last year in Ealdor for both of them, though they don’t know it yet.Merlin and his peasant prince, as the wheel turns.  In eight parts.
Relationships: Merlin & Will (Merlin)
Comments: 87
Kudos: 39





	1. Ostara

“Oh, land. You bugger.”

Merlin leaned over the edge of the gully, peering down into an impenetrable mass of budding vegetation. “Did you get him?”

“I got him.” Bracken snapped in the ravine. “Urgh.”

“Do you need a hand?”

“No, don’t come down here. We’ll never get up again.”

Merlin, doubtful, settled back to wait. The rustling below could almost have been mistaken for a chubby hedgehog nosing its way through the leaves, or badger kits squirming under a fallen tree, but it was accompanied by muttered imprecations of a decidedly human and distinctly impolite nature, and punctuated by the distressed squalling of a small creature far out of its element.

“Oh, quit your bellyaching.” The faint voice drifted up to Merlin’s ears from the depths of the gorge. “This is your own ruddy fault.”

A fat honeybee hummed by Merlin’s ear and settled on a blossom of sweetbriar, the delicate stem dipping precipitously until it brushed Merlin’s nose. The inverted bee clung doggedly to its perch, knees caked with clods of yellow pollen.

“Are you coming up?” Merlin called. The sweetbriar stem fluttered in his breath. The bee raised its wings in alarm as it bobbed along with the flower.

“Me and the most clart-headed creature you ever did see.”

The crackling sounds of disturbed bracken drew closer, and, a moment later, the budding briar bush shook as if it had been taken hold of from below. The bee, severely put-upon, gave this plant up as a lost cause and bumbled away. “Give us a hand, yeah?”

Merlin leaned into the tangle of bramble and caught hold of the proffered hand, hauling the unfortunate climber up through a tangle of briar thorns and over the edge of the gully. 

Will immediately dumped the bawling lamb into Merlin’s lap and clambered up from muddied knees, brushing off his trousers with a disgusted look on his face. “Urgh.”

The lamb struggled to get to its feet on the uneven surface of Merlin’s legs, as Merlin patted its flank gingerly. The creature was covered in mud and burrs, and its fleece had been matted together with something that appeared to be hardening into a ferociously sticky external skeleton. 

“What is that?” Merlin asked, wiping his fingers on the ground. “Sap?”

“Do I know?” Will pushed up his sleeves and inspected a spiderweb pattern of scratches on his arms, shooting a glare at the lamb. “Those goosegogs weren’t even ripe yet, you daft bugger.” He shook his head and sighed in a long-suffering way. “This is why I didn’t want a bottle lamb.”

“Well, it’s a bit late to change your mind now. He’ll pay you back in fleeces soon enough.”

“What fleeces? He’s growing a turtle shell, look at him.”

The lamb stumbled across Merlin’s thighs, bleating pathetically. Merlin hefted it aloft by the armpits, holding it nose to nose with himself. “Don’t you listen to him,” he told the small creature. “He’s just narky because now you'll have a bath and he still stinks like Mot Mauthilde’s manky old feet.”

“Oh, and you smell so much better, do you?”

Merlin didn’t; that was true enough. He’d spent an entire morning and the better half of an afternoon dragging a light plow through soil that felt like solid rock, and there was no way to come out the other side of that without positively reeking. Both he and Will ought to have been washed up and home for supper by now, not chasing escaped livestock into the next kingdom, but Will’s latest burdensome project had clearly formulated other plans.

“Well, all right,” Merlin conceded. “Everybody needs a wash. But especially this fellow. Look at the state of him.”

The lamb twisted around to nip at its matted rear. Will swatted its head away lightly. “Leave it be, you.” To Merlin, he added, “I’ve got Eli's yoke to mend, and an entire croft at home to turn over. We’ve already wasted an hour on this beast.”

Merlin bounced the lamb lightly in his lap, smiling as it planted both of its front legs on his chest and dug its hind hooves into his thighs. “It’s not his fault he’s scampish,” he said, bopping it on the nose. "Have a heart, Will. His mum didn’t want him.”

Will gave the lamb an unsympathetic look. “You and me both, lad,” he said to it. “That’s no call for being an absolute pest.”

Merlin rolled his eyes and lay back on the ground, new shoots of grass tickling the back of his neck and the lamb’s knobbly legs splayed on either side of his chest. “Don’t pay him any mind,” he told the lamb. “You continue on just as you are. You’ll grow into a fine young buck before he can say aye.”

“Young buck, says who?” Will retorted. “I’m not breeding any bummer lamb. He’s a wool wether for life, and that’s if I don’t eat him first.”

Merlin rubbed the lamb’s matted sides vigorously. Its dirty fleece was the roly-poly suit of all newborns, too big for its frame and bunched up in warm, wrinkled folds. “You can’t eat Hector.”

“Don’t name the bottle lambs, Merlin.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, _William_.”

Will cracked a grin. The lamb sneezed, spraying Merlin’s chin with gunk, and Merlin closed a loose hand around its muzzle, jostling its head. It was too nice out to mind a little spit. For weeks, he had gone about his morning round of chores numb-fingered and shivering, glaring at a last shrinking strip of dirty snow clinging stubbornly to existence in the shadow of an unused wheelbarrow. But today, that last vestige of winter had vanished, leaving behind a wet patch of yellow grass, the flattened blades gasping for air in the sun. There was still an edge to the wind when it whistled down off the mountains, but its bite was only puppy teeth, a wick feeling - bracing and coltish and invigorating, like cold spring water tempered by the sun. Merlin sucked in two eager lungfuls, relishing the taste. 

“I’ll help you turn over your garden,” he offered. “Let’s have a little break.”

Will shook his head, pulling one arm behind his back in an elbow-popping stretch. “I don’t see how scrubbing this fellow ʼtil my knuckles are raw counts as a break.”

Merlin patted the lamb’s bony head. “Bad luck, Hector. I suppose we’ll have to roast you after all.”

“I thought you've just told me I’m not to eat him.”

“He’s turning into a little hedgehog; what else are you going to do?” Merlin tapped the lamb’s side, where matted strands of hair had twisted into rapidly hardening spikes. “You can’t card fleece like this.”

“Who says?”

“Anybody who spins.” Merlin closed his eyes lazily in the sun. “Anybody with sense. Ask my mum.”

Will scoffed. “I don’t need to ask your old mum.”

“Oi now,” Merlin replied, though he did not open his eyes. “Don’t make me thump you.”

“You can thump me all the way from here to Carr Naeddran, if it gets you off your lazy arse.”

Merlin smiled. Hector gave up rooting around the flaps of Merlin’s jacket for a bottle or something to nibble on and put his head down on Merlin’s chest. “Some of us know when to rest, that’s all."

“And _some_ of us fall asleep in any little scrap of sunshine.”

Merlin shrugged. _Some_ of them liked to enjoy a fine spring day, and there was no harm in that. He’d already been at the plow all morning, and that would have been enough for anyone - a winter spent lifting nothing heavier than a heap of firewood had left him horrendously unprepared for the renewed demands of daily heavy labor, which situation was a temporary aggrievance, he knew, but a bruising one all the same. As far as Merlin was concerned, Will was lucky that Merlin hadn’t taken one look at the scratch plow’s cobweb-dusted handles and hightailed it for the border.

A shadow darkened the inside of Merlin’s eyelids, and then the weight of the lamb’s body abruptly vanished. Merlin opened his eyes to see Will tucking the small creature under one elbow like a chunk of timber, Hector protesting this unceremonious manhandling at the top of his little lungs.

“Let’s get on, then,” Will said, kicking Merlin in the ribs. “If I’m going in the Ea with this thing, you’re going in with me. Elsewise you can be the one to wrangle Hely tomorrow and I’ll push the plow behind.”

Merlin made a face and rolled to his feet, bits of grass and seed-fluff fluttering away on the breeze. Will’s ancient donkey, who had lived to see three different kings seated on the throne at Carr Naeddran and who had not plowed a single willing acre under any of them, was properly named Nan, but she had only ever been called Hellegast by Will, which was an old word translating roughly to ‘hell-spirit spawned in the deepest pit of malignancy.’ 

“She won’t turn for me and you know it,” Merlin said.

“No, but it’s a laugh when she gets your sleeve between her teeth.”

“She gets my skin in, too, you know.” Merlin pulled up his sleeve, revealing a vaguely tooth-shaped bruise. “Look here.”

Will shrugged. “Like I said - a laugh.”

Merlin shoved him, and Will did laugh, then, stumbling down the first dip of the slope with Hector safely tucked under his arm. They set off down the hill together, away from the edge of the wood and back toward the village and the river beyond.

“When Hely dies - ”

“Hely’s never going to die,” Will sighed. “She’s going to live forever, out of spite. And then tear up the grass on my grave, just because.”

“Mm-hmm. But when she does - ”

“She won’t.”

“ - maybe we can get something better.”

Will clicked his tongue. “I can’t afford better. Can you?”

“You know I can’t. But by then, I mean. Maybe. If I could get a carthorse or something, you wouldn’t have to drive Hely at all.”

Will was shaking his head. “And if you could get a unicorn, you could turn all the rivers in this valley to gold, Merlin.”

“That’s a legend.”

“So’s a carthorse, for people like us,” Will said flatly. “Don’t be sun-stupid.”

Merlin stuffed sticky hands into his pockets. Plow beasts were impossibly expensive, but it was such a nice thought - he hated to abandon it so easily. An ox or a carthorse (in some sort of fantastical scenario where Merlin had more than two pennies to rub together, that was) would be an unfathomable boon. Plow beasts were expensive enough that only a couple of Merlin’s neighbors were even well-situated enough to keep one, and no single family owned enough animals to make up a complete plow team of their own. Therefore, during plowing times, what few beasts existed in the village were yoked together and driven as part of a communal plowing pool, which first serviced the plots of anyone who had supplied one of the animals, as well as anyone who was too old or infirm to plow their own strips by other means. Time willing, the team was always turned to help other neighbors, but there was never enough time for the heavy plow to get to everyone, so the rest of them were left with individual scratch plows pulled by the ailing Helys of this world, and Hely, for all her astonishing longevity, simply could not compare to the draft power of a true plow beast. An ox meant that a person would be able to get twice the work done in half the time, and that their better-tilled land would yield more, and that they would never need to cross-plow a field again, which was a blessing in and of itself. 

Will had had an ox, once upon a time. The circumstances relating to its current absence were not something he and Merlin discussed.

Merlin rolled his thumb and forefinger together inside his pocket, trying to rub off some of the sticky resin from Hector’s fleece. “Don’t bother about me,” he said, after a minute. “I’m only talking.”

Will, his expression shuttered, switched Hector from one arm to the other and kicked a stone down the footpath. He looked like he might want to apologize, maybe, but if he went around saying he was sorry every time he got grumpy about something, they’d never either of them get anything done. “You never know,” he conceded, instead. “I’ve got that cow now. And I’ll have her served by Rory’s old bull after I’ve done all his fences and things. Maybe she’ll give us a fine bull calf. And then Hely can be your next pair of boots."

“She won’t go quietly.”

“I know it. After all I’ve done for her.”

Merlin smiled. “What have you done for her, besides hook her to a scratch plow and curse her name six ways from Sunday?”

“I keep her in feed, don’t I? Nobody else in this village would put up with a beast that ornery.”

Merlin nodded. “I know the feeling.”

Will cuffed him across the back of the head. “Come again?”

Merlin grinned. “I _said_ it takes one to know one, William.”

Will snorted. “Catch me when I haven’t got an armful of lamb, you nit.”

Merlin swiped Hector out of Will’s arms, tucking the lamb against his chest as the little legs paddled futilely in the air. “Come and get us then.”

“Don’t think that thing will stop me.”

“His name is _Hector_.”

“Gods above and beasts below,” Will moaned, rolling his eyes skyward. “You’ve just got to be thumped, Merlin; it’s for your own good.”

Merlin ducked a rather inexpert swing aimed in the direction of his head and took off down the hill, Hector’s squeals ringing in his ears and Will’s racing steps not far behind.

***

“This isn’t working.”

Will glared at Merlin and hauled Hector up out of the shallows, setting the lamb down on the pebbly shoal. The water had washed away some of the dirt and plant debris, but Hector was as sticky and matted as ever, and he now had the added distinction of being sopping wet. “You want to have a go, Merlin?”

Merlin held up his hands. “I didn’t say you were doing it wrong.”

“Of course I’m not doing it wrong! It’s a bath! There's only one way to do it!”

Merlin’s stomach gurgled. They had not gone home to eat with everyone else after plowing that morning, and it was too early in the spring for anything edible to be growing within plucking distance. “Maybe we ought to try the comb again.”

“Yes, let’s.” The shallow current burbled around Will's ankles, ripples glittering in the sun. “Then come shearing season I won’t even have to trim him; he’ll already be bald.”

Merlin sighed and sat back on his heels, pebbles crunching under his shoes. The broad, slow-flowing Ea was brimming with melted snow, lapping swollenly at the stubble of last year’s cut rushes and the first patches of this year’s marsh marigold. Far away on the opposite bank, a smattering of the village rams nosed about in the grass, exiled from the rest of the flock until autumn's tupping. One stocky specimen lifted its curly-horned crown to peer curiously across the river at the sound of Hector’s plaintive bleating. 

“That big fellow’s more interested in you than your own mum,” Merlin murmured to Hector. “No wonder you’ve made such a mess of yourself.”

The lamb bashed his head into Merlin’s knees with all the impotent fury of an offended child, and Merlin scooped him up, wrapping him snugly in his coat to towel him off. Will waded out of the shallows, flicking water into Merlin’s face as he went by. “Don’t make excuses for that thing,” Will said. “It’s a menace.”

Merlin twisted to follow his progress, Hector squirming in his lap. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t let him get loose again,” Will ordered, neither answering Merlin's question nor stopping to put on his shoes. “Next time he runs off, let the eagles have him.”

“Where are you going - ” 

But Will had gone, up the sloping bank and past a clump of budding trees, into pastureland that was just starting to take on the shaggy greenery of spring. Merlin returned his gaze to Hector, who was worming his way out of Merlin’s damp coat. “I suppose it’s just you and me, then.”

Merlin sat down and leaned back on his palms, letting Hector wander around the edge of the river for the next quarter of an hour, as the sun passed its apex and began to drift toward the opposite side of the valley. The lamb swiftly gave up on nosing through Merlin’s clothes for an elusive bottle of milk and instead took to exploring, tasting grasses which had barely had a chance to grow and skittering around in gravel-kicking circles every time a bird’s shadow fell over him, or a frog jumped into the water, or a bee buzzed by his ears. Merlin laid his coat out to dry in the weak sunlight - in a few short months, that same sun would be powerful enough that he would be cursing its rays, if past years spent baking behind a plow in a shadowless, open field were anything to go by, but today the warmth was gentle and inoffensive, soft like lamb’s fleece...though perhaps not like Hector’s lamb’s fleece, which was no better for his dip in the Ea, and worsening now as he pranced around in a slick of gritty sand. 

“Now, that’s enough." Merlin rose and plucked Hector out of the dirt, holding the lamb up at eye level. “You really are a terrific little shambolic disaster, aren’t you?”

The lamb stared back at him, cross-eyed. Merlin rolled up the legs of his trousers and waded back into the river, dipping Hector back down despite the lamb’s vocal protests. “Let’s have another go, shall we?”

Hector squawked his displeasure. “You can have me or you can have William,” Merlin said, supporting the lamb with one hand and working futilely at a clump of sap with the other. “And since I’m less likely to punt you across the river, a little gratitude wouldn’t go amiss, lad.”

Whatever emotions the lamb was capable of experiencing, gratitude did not currently appear to be among them. The little creature squirmed mightily as Merlin scrubbed his fleece, but Merlin doubted whether even a perfectly compliant Hector could have led to a better outcome. The water did nothing to dislodge even the smallest patches of sap; indeed, the only thing Merlin seemed to be accomplishing was gumming up his own fingers. “You may have to go starkers after all, little one.” 

Merlin tried not to imagine Will’s face once the lamb had been trimmed down to the skin, when Merlin would have to suggest ‘ _well, now he needs a coat or something; it’s nippy out still - .’_ The very concept of the bottle lamb already constituted enough of an affront to nature to be preposterous, as far as Will was concerned - a piece of livestock that needed to be both fed _and_ clothed like a human baby would likely send him over the edge. 

“ _And roasted ye shall be_ ,” Merlin hummed. “ _A plate for me and a plate for thee_.”

Hector made a very respectable lunge for the shore, and Merlin readjusted his grip, water sloshing up to his elbows. “Listen, you, I’m only funning - ”

“Need a hand there, Merlin?”

Merlin looked up. Some distance upriver, one of his neighbors had waded around a bend in the water, his trousers rolled up to the knees and a collection of willow-woven eel traps slung over his shoulders. He was very blond and, despite the weakness of the spring sun, a little pink across the cheek bones. He looked surprised to see Merlin there, but gestured at the ruckus being kicked up in the water around Merlin’s knees in an amicable enough way. “Caught something?”

Merlin hesitated. Peter was a good sort, as far as neighbors went - one of seven siblings and, appropriately, capable of thriving in any sort of chaos; relentlessly cheerful in all circumstances and making up for in enthusiasm what he sometimes lacked in good sense - but he, like most of Merlin’s contemporaries, did not seek out Merlin’s company, or spend time with Merlin outside of communal work, and for all his commitment to jaunty camaraderie, Merlin did not think Peter had ever allowed himself and Merlin to be left alone in a room together, which seemed to be something all of Merlin’s agemates scrupulously (if discreetly) avoided. Merlin's peers kept to their own circle, and they left Merlin to his, small as it was. 

Will’s attitudes about this fell squarely into the realm of _good riddance_. Merlin had stopped arguing with him about it a long time ago.

He held up a dripping Hector, who squirmed. Perhaps Merlin’s sudden appearance had only surprised Peter into a reflexive neighborliness, but accidental courtesy or not, Merlin was not going to complain about anybody being friendly to him, and certainly not on a fine spring day like this. “Don’t suppose you’ve got a trap big enough for this fellow?”

Peter shrugged, jangling one of the tubular traps in Merlin’s direction. “Not unless you rolled him up real thin, like. And not unless he likes dead fish.”

“Can’t imagine he would.” Merlin wrinkled his nose as the breeze carried a whiff of fish-guts his way. “That reeks.”

“It’s rank,” Peter agreed, nodding. “Which is why I’ve let that one carry the bait bag.”

Peter jerked a thumb over his shoulder as a figure in a sheepskin vest came trudging around the bend, sloshing more water around than necessary and dragging a moist sack through the shallows, a swoop of long brown hair falling across his eyes. The newcomer was almost as tall as Merlin, and not quite as pale as Peter, but more solidly-built than either of them, and he waded through the strong current with ease, despite the fact that it sort of looked to Merlin like he would rather flop facefirst into the water and let it carry him far, far away. “Listen, mate,” the new arrival said to Peter, “this is good fun and all, but I’ve decided I’d rather toss myself off the threshing barn, if that’s all right with everyone - ” Quinn made as if to sling the bait bag into Peter’s arms, pausing mid-swing when he caught sight of Merlin, the wet canvas continuing its arc and slapping a protesting Peter in the belly. “Oh. It’s a party.”

Quinn's tone was such that Merlin felt pretty comfortable assuming that had this been a party planned by Quinn himself, then Merlin probably would not have been invited, except perhaps as someone to snicker at. 

“What in the name of Nechtan are you doing with that thing?” Quinn asked, staring at Hector.

Merlin gave the lamb a fortifying pat on the rump. “It’s called a bath. I understand if you’re not familiar.”

Peter snorted; Quinn just rolled his eyes. “Next time you want to drown something, Merlin, stuff it in a weighted sack and toss it in the fish pond.”

There was a slithering sound of fallen gravel from the shoreline behind, and Merlin turned to see Will hopping down from the grassy embankment and onto the pebbled strip of sand, carrying an apple-sized bundle wrapped in cheesecloth.

“What’s that, mate?” Will called to Quinn, not sounding altogether matey at all. “Who’s tossing what in the fish pond?”

Quinn eyed Will warily. It did not take a particular genius to know that Will thought Quinn ought to be the one going in the fish pond, in a sack or otherwise, and it was even clearer that Will did not care whether Quinn ever came out again. 

Quinn waved a careless hand at the lamb. “I was just saying to Merlin that if he’s trying to drown a poor-doer, it works better when the head goes under as well as the body.”

“Yeah? Can he practice on you?”

Peter socked Quinn on the arm, crowing, “Nabbed!” He shoved a bundle of eel traps into Quinn’s arms, the tightly-woven baskets clacking together, then waved in Will’s direction. “Ey up, William.”

“Peter.”

Peter gestured at the lamb, which Will came sloshing into the river to remove from Merlin’s hands. “You’re not actually trying to drown that thing, are you?”

“Oh lor, I wish.”

Peter took the sack of bait from Quinn’s hands and loaded up one of the eel traps. “Poor-doer?”

“Pain in my arse, in fact.”

Merlin kicked a footful of water at the back of Will’s legs. “Orphan lamb,” Merlin clarified, following Will back toward the shoreline. “His mum didn’t take a shining to him, is all. William’s got him taken care of.”

Quinn let his weighted trap fall into the river with a splash, bending at the waist to check the placement. “That’s fitting, I suppose.”

Will halted with the water still up to his ankles, his eyebrows ticking upwards.

“Oi!” Peter exclaimed, smacking Quinn in the belly with a wicker trap. “Just ‘cos you’re narked off about missing lunch doesn’t mean you can just say any old thing!” 

Merlin felt suddenly very glad that both of Will’s hands were occupied carrying the lamb, though he supposed this did not wholly preclude Will from using Hector as a fleecy, bleating projectile.

Quinn brushed fish scales from his hands. “He’s a big lad. I’m only winding him up.”

Merlin thought it more likely that Will was debating the merits of _un_ winding his knuckles directly into Quinn’s nose, but perhaps Quinn thought the prospect of everyone going home in wet underthings would prevent this. Everyone who had ever met Will ought to have known better, by this point, but in any case Quinn was either too tired or too uninspired to instigate a proper scrap this afternoon. He sauntered away upriver, dragging his trap into a better position behind him, adding, to Peter, as an afterthought, “Anyhow, I didn’t _miss lunch_. Meg chucked it.”

Merlin was hard-pressed to hide a smirk at that. Quinn’s twin sister Margoret was, generally speaking, quiet as a roe deer hunkered down in the grass, and Merlin could scarcely imagine her bickering with anyone, but he supposed that siblings lived in a world all their own.

“She ought to have chucked your mardy arse out with it,” Peter replied easily, flipping over a second trap and shaking some bait into the conical cavity at its rear. “I would have done, if my brothers slept as late as you.” To Merlin and Will, he added in an exaggerated whisper, “She fed it to the pig.”

He snapped the back of the trap closed and let it plunge into the river. “Anyhow, don’t mind us, lads. You lot carry on with...whatever it is you’re doing there.”

Hector extended his neck and _baaa_ ’ed loudly in response. Peter went back to work, chasing after Quinn’s first trap as it came unmoored and began to drift away. Will, unsmiling, watched him splash after it for a moment.

Merlin nudged him. “What _are_ we doing here? What’s in the bag?”

Will came to himself, skirting Merlin and wading up onto the shore. “We’re giving the lamb a wash,” he said, tossing the cheesecloth bag to the ground. “Isn’t that what you’ve been on about all afternoon?”

“I suppose so. I thought you’d given up and run home, though.” Merlin pointed hopefully at the small sack. “That’s not lunch, is it?”

Will rolled his eyes and sat down in the sand, setting Hector down in front of him. “No. You can afford to miss one meal, Merlin. You’re as bad as that one.” He jerked his head towards Quinn.

“I resent that on every possible level.”

Will, working at the knot in the cheesecloth, shrugged. “Can’t argue with facts.”

“Don’t talk to me,” Merlin said. “We are not speaking.”

Will unwrapped his little package, revealing it to be an apple-sized chunk of butter, golden yellow and softening in the sun. 

“You’ve forgotten the bread,” Merlin informed him.

“I’ve already told you it isn’t lunch.” Will snagged Hector, who was toddling away up the bank. “No you don’t, you little devil.” He wedged the lamb firmly between his knees and carved out a gob of butter from the package, slapping it onto the stickiest areas of Hector’s fleece and working the grease in with his fingers.

Merlin broke into a surprised smile. “That’s a heap of butter to waste on a bottle lamb you don’t even want.”

Hector twisted his neck around backwards to try and lick himself. Will nudged the little head away. “It’s not so much,” he muttered. “It was about to go off, anyhow.”

The butter looked all right to Merlin, though his empty stomach thought it would look better slathered on top of a chunk of crusty dark bread, and better still followed by a handful of dried apple rounds and whatever early greens he could pick out of the hedgerow as he wound his way home - wintercress, or rosebay, or crow garlic, no matter that all of those plants were bitter and that Will would say he might as well be put out to pasture with the sheep. Merlin hadn’t eaten a green vegetable that wasn’t a leek for months, and he was hungry.

He stuck a finger into the soft hunk of butter, then popped it into his mouth, relishing the tangy sweetness. 

Will made a disgusted noise. “I’ve just told you it’s ketty!”

“It tastes fine.” Merlin tipped his face up to the sun. The gritty sand of the shoreline was damp and cool under the seat of his trousers, as the wide artery of the Ea pulsed sedately off to his left. The slick taste of butter lingered tart and full on his tongue, hinting at a fattened summer to come.

“Do you know, I think this is working?” Will murmured to himself.

Merlin looked. Hector did look a bit better.

Merlin hunted around in the sand for the comb they’d discarded earlier. “Let me have a go.”

Will handed over the lamb, who for the first time that day did not screech in protest, but rather drew his little legs up under himself and laid his head on the sand, disconsolate eyes following the progress of tiny insects swooping in the sun. Merlin dragged the comb through Hector's fleece, noting with satisfaction how the previously solid mats of sap had loosened enough to be tugged free. “I think he’s hungry.”

Will laced his hands behind his head and lay back. “We’re all hungry,” he replied. “He’s the one who went bounding off into the woods. We’d all have had lunch ages ago, if he’d minded me.”

Merlin added another pat of butter to Hector’s coat and worked a stubborn snarl loose with his fingers, wiping off a tangle of resin in the sand. “He’s only little.”

“You’d make excuses for him no matter how big he was.” But there was no venom in the observation.

Merlin rubbed Hector up and down, the lamb’s fat wooly wrinkles slick with grease. It wasn’t pretty, but the little creature was freed from his hardened shell at last, and the butter would wash out, or at the very least could be licked off. “One last bath for you,” he informed Hector, setting the lamb back onto his hooves. “And then home again for all of us.”

“Home again and into my croft,” Will reminded him. “You said.”

“Home again, and then lunch,” Merlin corrected him, rising. “And _then_ into your croft. I already said I’d help you turn your garden over. Don’t get fretty.” He scooped Hector into his arms and waded into the water, the river’s smoothly muscled currents tugging at the hem of his rolled-up trousers. Away upriver, almost far enough to be out of hearing distance, Quinn and Peter appeared to have only a single trap remaining between them, and seemed to be arguing animatedly about where to place it, though they paused when they caught sight of Merlin coming out into the water again. Peter took advantage of the momentary distraction to swipe the trap out of Quinn’s hands, splashing away to deal with it himself.

Quinn hollered down the length of the river. “Back at it again?”

Merlin swished Hector’s greased form through the river in a gentle arc, water beading on the glistening fleece like rain down the back of a goose. “Back at it again,” he murmured to himself, declining to make a louder reply.

Will, still lying on the shore, likewise pretended not to hear, though he draped an arm over his eyes and muttered something likely to have been unflattering. Hector set to squalling again.

“I don’t see why you don’t just cull that thing, Merlin,” Quinn called, wandering unhurriedly along in Peter’s wake. He tipped his head generously toward the shore where Will lay. “Haven’t you already got a bummer lamb of your own to look after?” 

Will sat up very quickly. But before Will could even open his mouth, Quinn yelped and gave a sudden lurch as his feet flew out from under him. He went careening backwards, crashing down into the water with a tremendous splash, flat on his back, as if he had tried to take a walk across Hector’s eel-slippery fleece and gotten dunked for it. 

Peter burst out into raucous laughter, which did not subside even when he saw that Quinn had accidentally crushed one of their eel traps. Hector’s little hooves smacked insistently at the surface of the water as Merlin, hiding a smile, adjusted his grip. “We’ll just go and have our bath somewhere else, shall we?” he called to Quinn. “Since you’re using this tub.”

He lugged Hector out of the water and passed the dripping lamb to Will, who received the bundle into his lap all too willingly, grinning like a loon at their sodden neighbor, who, to his credit, seemed to know when to give up, as he had not tried to formulate any sort of retort or even bothered to get up from where he sprawled, half-submerged in the river.

“Look at that, my lad,” Will crowed quietly to Hector, toweling the lamb off with Merlin's coat. “You’d think it was slippery under there or something.”

Merlin knelt at the edge of the river to rinse the comb and the cheesecloth. “Weird, that.”

“Yeah,” Will said. “Very weird. Funny timing.”

“You think?”

“I do,” Will said. “Couldn’t have done better if I’d pushed him myself.”

“Hm.” Merlin swished the comb through the silty shallows. “Now you mention it, I suppose it was a bit convenient.” He turned, squatting on his heels. In Will's lap, Hector’s head poked out from the folds of a damp, buttered coat. 

“You know what this means, don’t you?” Will said, looking at Merlin gravely. 

“What’s that?”

Will gathered the bundle of lamb in his hands, hefting the front end for display. “Now, don’t anybody panic. But I think this lamb might have _magic_.”

Merlin struggled to wrestle his burgeoning grin into something approximating sadness. “I suppose that means we’ll have to roast him after all.”

“Damn,” Will said, shaking his head mournfully. “I knew it. I knew there was something funny about that fellow. Just look at the size of his ears.” He flicked Hector’s velvet ear flaps gently, but smirked at Merlin in a way that begged for reprisal. 

Merlin would be happy to give it to him, but not in front of their neighbors. “Catch me when I haven’t got an audience, Will.”

Will got to his feet, Hector in hand, and gave Merlin’s head a rudely affectionate shove. “Come and get us, then.”

Will scooped up his shoes and scrambled up the embankment, taking off across the pasture. Merlin sprang up to follow him, leaving the rams and their bellowed replies to Hector’s bleating behind, the strident sounds of early spring echoing up and down the rolling river.


	2. Beltane

A column of fire billowed up just inches in front of Merlin’s face, flushing his cheeks pink and filling his nose with woodsmoke.

He dumped his armful of logs onto the pyre in front of him, then hopped out of the way as three children drove a lamb around the flames. The village green was vividly illuminated that night, its grassy expanse dotted with scattered bonfires and a larger conflagration blazing in the middle, whose roaring tower of flames blotted out the night sky. Sparks had replaced stars, and Ealdor's little corner of the valley seemed to have traded night for day, but this hardly mattered, given that none of Merlin’s neighbors were trying to sleep.

The village green was packed with people. Children chased extraordinarily good-tempered pet lambs in and out of the flickering firelight, and adults clustered around smaller bonfires, enjoying a rare chance to do nothing more pressing than eat, drink, and chat with one another. Peter’s grandaunt had brewed a tremendous batch of ale the fortnight previous, and tonight all doors to her cott were flung open, the glow from her house’s interior painting the grass with gold. Songs and intermittent laughter emanated from within, while pleasantly sated guests spilled out into the garden to be swept up into the arms of dancing neighbors, who spun their partners around the green to the accompaniment of fiddles and a rickety, rollicking tambor. 

The central blaze rose past Merlin's shoulders, buffeting his face with heat as he backed away to a respectable distance, watching the flames jump over one another in playful twists as they tossed themselves into the sky. 

Something inside Merlin burned to play along with them. Not in a malicious way like that fellow up in Pedders Hope had done, of course - just for a bit of fun. He could feel the secret creature that lived inside of him pacing its confines, quivering, ready to escape its cage and go capering around the green. He was sure he could make something pretty, if he could let that creature out to have a little romp - by snatching up a handful of flames and making a toss-ball that wouldn't burn the grass where it bounced, or by shaping a puff of sparks into a lamb that glowed in the dark. The smallest children would like that - they might even stop chasing Hector, for a bit.

He scrubbed his prickling palms against his trousers, itching to try it.

“Ey up, Merlin!” 

A little cup was shoved enthusiastically into his hands. Merlin came to himself, and raised the cup in salute before downing the honey-tinged contents in one. 

“Cheers,” he said. “How’s the alehouse?”

Will snatched the empty cup from Merlin’s fingers and lobbed it back towards Estrid’s cottage, where one of several unidentifiable silhouettes snagged it out of the air, displaying surprising dexterity for someone who’d likely consumed a startling quantity of drink in a short period of time. “It’s a shambles," Will said. "I think Mot Estrid drank half the brew herself; she nearly dunked herself in the rain barrel as I was leaving. And Rodolf’s about to skell over in the piggery.”

“You didn’t want to stay and see that?”

“Everyone’s seen that, Merlin.”

Merlin surveyed the green, drinking in the crowd’s energy, as familiar figures passed in and out of the shadows of scattered bonfires. The smoky air mingled with a sweeter smell of flowering meadow-bright, garlands of which bedecked every cottage’s doors and windows. His mother was out there on the green somewhere, comfortably ensconced around one of the fires with Audrey and Matthew and Eloys and her other friends, eating and talking and keeping an eye on the littlest children, to make sure they didn’t go bounding off into the woods.

Merlin’s agemates were subject to no such restrictions, of course. It was right and properly traditional for them to slink surreptitiously away as the night wore on, trickling into the trees in twos and threes. Beltane was the only night of the year where none of them would be expected home before tomorrow, and when adults could be counted on not to ask any questions - given the nature of the holiday, their parents probably didn’t want to know.

Merlin watched one of Adeliz’s younger siblings snatch a burning brand from one of the bonfires and go tearing across the green with it, brandishing it like a sword. Adeliz herself broke away from a reel with Duncan to give chase, hollering dire threats of death and dismemberment.

“Are you sleeping out?” Merlin asked Will.

“If you are.”

“I have to ask my mother.”

Will released a pent-up groan. “No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“It’s Beltane, Merlin. Let’s just go.”

Will was dragging on Merlin's arm; Merlin shook him off. “I can’t. She’ll worry.”

“She’s going to say no.”

“No, she isn’t.”

“Yes, she is. And then you’re not going to come, and I’m going to be stuck here with this lot - ” he gestured at the crowd - “dancing like a bunch of loons, and Peter trying to dump his mug over my head every chance he gets, for luck.”

“Just let me ask her,” Merlin said, pulling away from him. “It won’t take a moment. You can go without me if I can’t come.”

“Yeah, because that’s fun.” Will shook his head. “I can’t tell people I spent Beltane Eve with myself, Merlin; you know what that sounds like.”

Merlin shrugged, backtracking into the crowd. “Like a good time, for some.”

Will rolled his eyes. “That’s lovely, Merlin. That’s very nice.”

“Just wait,” Merlin said. “I’ll be right back.”

“She’s going to say no!” Will called after him.

“She’s not,” Merlin muttered, though it was possible that he was trying to reassure himself, rather than convince Will.

He wove around a knot of people watching the dance, aiming for a collection of little bonfires at the eastern edge of the green. He found his mother sitting there with a small cluster of other adults, a mug in her hand and a bowl of supper cooling at her feet.

He slid onto the log next to her, and her arm wrapped automatically around his waist. “There you are,” she said, giving him an affectionate squeeze.

“Here I am,” he replied. “Just coming to see if anyone’s keeled over yet, that’s all.”

Hunith’s little corner was about as likely to succumb to drunken revelry as Merlin himself, which was to say not very, given that he had been expressly forbidden from overimbibing on this and every other occasion. Gilbert, on the opposite side of the fire, appeared more interested in his bowl of food than anything else, and Audrey's cup was still mostly full, and Matthew, his fingers linked with Audrey's, seemed to have forgotten his own drink completely, and was watching the reel instead. Merlin got the distinct impression that he was waiting for the moment when he had to haul some overexuberant dancer out of a bonfire.

“You lot ought to tone it down over here,” Merlin informed his mother. “You’re having far too much fun.”

She smiled at him. “We are having a perfectly lovely time, my dear, thank you.”

“How can you be? It doesn’t look like anyone’s fallen down the well yet or anything.”

Matthew caught the tail end of this, over a brief lull in the music. “Has somebody fallen in there?” he asked, sounding more resigned than worried. 

“Sorry, no,” Merlin assured him. “I was joking.”

“Not yet,” Audrey added. “It’s early still.”

Matthew sighed and got to his feet. “I’m going to cover it.”

Merlin was not sure how much good this would do. Last year the well had been closed up, too, but someone had removed the cover to get themselves a drink, and then someone else had dared them to take a ride to the bottom stuffed into the bucket, which had worked out sort of all right for them on the way down, and then not quite so well coming back up, at least not until a few more sober folk had gotten involved. 

“And what exactly have you been up to?” Hunith asked him.

“Erm…”

A child’s giddy screech rang out somewhere to their left. Adeliz’s younger sister came barreling into their group a moment later, clutching her stolen torch and toddling as fast as her little legs would take her. She was in and out of their circle of logs before Merlin could blink, and then a fuming Adeliz burst through after her, stumbling over Matthew’s abandoned supper. “Sorry," she exclaimed breathlessly, "excuse me - pardon, Mot Hunith, sorry - ”

Mirabel went racing away, the tiny torch-wielder ducking around adult legs in a surprisingly effective series of evasive maneuvers, and Adeliz shot off after her. Merlin smiled, watching them - he could probably sit back and watch those two tearing up the green all night and be pretty well-entertained, but -

He closed his mind over the end of the torch like a wet cloth. The flame winked out, trailing a thin line of smoke.

Mirabel stopped dead in her tracks, staring open-mouthed at her diminished prize. Her shock and dismay lasted just long enough for Adeliz to sweep her up and snatch the stick out of her hands - Merlin could not hear what Adeliz was saying, but he was willing to bet it included something along the lines of Mirabel being roasted over one of the bonfires.

Merlin turned back to his own group. Gilbert was offering to pile some of his own supper onto Matthew’s upset bowl. Audrey was righting Hunith’s overturned cup. 

His mother was watching him with that tense look on her face, the one heavy with equal parts worry and disappointment.

His spirits sank. “Sorry,” he said in a low voice.

She could not say anything more about it out here, of course. Accepting her newly-filled cup from Audrey, she said her _thank you_ 's with a smile, but Merlin could see the way her hands wrapped tighter around her mug.

_She’s going to say no._

“Erm,” he began uncertainly. “I was going to ask...”

His mother was already shaking her head. “No, Merlin.”

“But - ”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea." Her voice was quiet, laden with unspoken meaning.

“Will - ”

“William will be here tomorrow, Merlin.”

Merlin stared at his feet, feeling himself flush with frustration.

 _Why had he put that stupid torch out?_ If he could have just kept it reined in, for one more second -

He rubbed his fingers together, his eyes burning a hole in the ground. It didn’t _want_ to be reined in, though, that was the trouble. Everyone else was running loose tonight, unbound by rules or conventions. _It_ wanted to be running loose, too. _It_ wanted to snatch up a burning branch from the bonfire and go tearing across the green like Mirabel, kicking up its heels at an older sibling’s fruitless pursuit.

His mother’s fingers brushed the small of his back. “I’m sorry, Merlin. Maybe another time.”

A mutinous part of him whispered that there was never going to be another time. It was always going to be just like this.

He could see Matthew coming back from the well. Merlin did not want to be here when he got back, or spend any more time socializing with his neighbors. 

He got up. Inside, he could feel _it_ pacing, bumping against the bars of its confines like a penned and restless ram. “I’m going to get some food."

“You’ll come back and sit with us?”

“I told Will I’d eat with him.” 

His mother watched him, a faint crease in her forehead. “Not too far,” she conceded.

He nodded.

Will was waiting exactly where Merlin had left him, on the fringes of the crowd. 

“So?” he asked, when he saw Merlin reappear. “Are you stuck here?”

Merlin hesitated. Behind them, his neighbors spun around the central bonfire in an ebullient reel. Their feet slashed the firelight into strips of shadow, a smoky glow flickering across Will’s expectant face. Beyond the hedge, the fallow field and the woods beckoned, wild and empty and far away, far from this place and these people and their endless parade of watchful eyes. His magic whined mournfully inside him. 

His mother had said _stay_. 

“No,” Merlin said. “It’s fine. Let’s go.”

Will broke into a grin. “Good man! I knew you could do it.”

“No, you didn’t,” Merlin replied. “Where do you want to go?”

“Anywhere.” On the other side of the crowd of dancers, the musicians suddenly struck up a new tune. “Anywhere but here,” Will amended, and yanked Merlin out of the circle of onlookers. “Lugh have mercy, they’re letting Rory have a go on the fiddle. Let’s go.”

Merlin did not need to be told twice. They had all suffered through too many renditions of ‘I Have a Yong Suster' in past years to ever be interested in listening to another performance, and Rory didn’t exactly practice in between feast days.

“Do you want to go up the Warren?” Merlin asked, ducking around a few of their clapping neighbors.

“At _Beltane_?” Will cut through the long grass away from the crowd, Merlin a hairsbreadth behind him. “Not ruddy likely. Not unless you want to catch half our neighbors with their trousers down.”

Merlin wrinkled his nose. He and Will spent too much time exploring the Warren for Merlin to ever want to think about what other people got up to in there on the one day of the year when anyone other than the two of them was bold enough to venture inside. 

“Although - ” Will said suddenly, breaking out into an altogether silly grin. “Why not go, though?”

“No, thanks.”

“Why not? Don’t you want to see Cuddey’s manky - ” Will chortled suddenly, interrupting himself - “Cuddey’s manky old conkers - ”

Merlin snorted. “ _No one_ wants to see - ”

“His wee flat drop-spindle - ”

“Cuddey’s own woman wouldn't take him up the Warren - ”

“I didn’t say he was with her - ”

“Who else would have him?”

“I didn’t say he was with anyone, did I?”

Merlin burst out laughing. Behind them, the off-key strains of “I Have a Yong Suster” rang out over the busy green. _I have a yong suster, fer biyonde the see!_

 _“Manye be the druries that she sente me,”_ Will wheezed, catching his breath. “Flipping heck!”

Merlin straightened up, grinning like a fool. Will raised his eyebrows.

“Don’t - ” Merlin protested.

“Conkers," Will whispered. "Wrinkly, walnut conkers.” 

Merlin succumbed helplessly to another wave of the giggles. 

He couldn't help himself. There was something tantalizingly careless to this holiday, something that threatened to tug him loose from shadowy, tacked-down corners and set him flying, unbound and unbuttoned and exhilaratingly _at large_. That was exactly why his mother had told him to stay home. Funny things would start to happen around him, if he kept on this way.

Something must have changed on his face, because Will prodded him in the chest, frowning. “What’s the matter? Cuddey’s conkers got you down?”

Back on the green, someone was bawling out inaccurate and increasingly bawdy lyrics to the fifth verse of ‘I Have a Yong Suster.’ For a brief moment, Merlin fought dutifully against the urge to get carried away by the silliness.

Then, in a flash of stubbornness, he decided that he wasn’t going to do that tonight. 

It was Beltane. Beltane was for breaking rules. 

Merlin nodded in the direction of the steep tangle of wood rising above the fallow field. “Let’s go up to Saddlegap,” he decided. The minor peaks bordering that side of the valley multiplied and eventually turned into the foothills of the White Mountains, but Saddlegap was the first notch on the way up, a sheltered glen at the meeting place of two thickly wooded peaks, affording an easy view of the valley without taking a wanderer too far into the real wilderness. 

Will shrugged. “Good enough by me.” He turned away, plunging through the flowering hedgerow into the unbroken fields beyond. “Best keep an eye out for wild conkers, though. It’s that season.”

Merlin followed him. Last year, the stretch of land beyond the hedge had housed their spring oats and barley, with beans and vetches planted on the ridges. This year it had been left to lie fallow, its untended soil sprung up with grasses and weeds. The ragged meadow was browsed by birds and household livestock during the day, but at this hour, the only sign of activity was a skitter of movement in the grass or the flash of a white tail bounding away as Merlin's footsteps disturbed the occasional rabbit or vole. 

The festivities behind them faded farther into the background as they crossed the field and reached the edge of the woods, distant revelry replaced by an invisible host of crickets and nightbirds. 

“What did your mother really say?” Will asked, ducking into the trees.

Merlin followed him. “ _Have fun, watch out for wild conkers._ ”

Will snapped a branch back at him. “Liar.” But he did not press for anything more.

The ground began to slope upwards. The two of them did not talk much, instead keeping their eyes open for jutting tree roots and loose rocks. Merlin found the hike surprisingly easy, even after they turned off the path and began climbing in earnest, which he supposed was only natural - he and Will had both been pushing scratch plows for the past month and a half, and when they hadn’t been doing that, they had been dragging harrows or breaking up clods of earth by hand. They were both far fitter than they had been during the relatively slack winter season, and it was a simple thing to take the steeper route, picking up bits of firewood as they went.

They reached their destination after about half an hour, cresting the notch into a tree-shrouded glen drowned in wood sorrel, as if someone had poured buckets of the tiny white flowers into a tangle of tree roots and let the hollow places overflow. Mounds of bramble curled into green caverns, the prickly sweeps in full flower. Come autumn, these bushes would be heavy and drooping with blackberries, but now, on the cusp of summer, the hardy leaves were crowned only with pale pink blossoms. Far below, the fallow field was visible through the trees, wrinkled in the traditional ridge and furrow pattern left over from last year’s plowing. A scraggly hedgerow cut across the field in a dark, uneven line. Beltane bonfires filled Ealdor's corner of the valley with a hazy glow, smoke spiraling into the sky, its feathery edges smudged sideways by the breeze.

Merlin pointed. “Did you jump over?”

Will looked up from building their own fire. “I’m not that stupid.”

“You weren’t at the alehouse long enough.”

“Not by half. Not to jump over that thing.” 

Merlin crept further out onto the overlook and peered down into the forest below. They weren’t so far from home, he supposed, not really, but the height of the slope and the thickness of the early summer foliage and the closeness of the hollow made it feel farther, like they had crossed some kind of border. Like they had wandered right off the map. 

The creature inside him hummed with approval, pleased.

He turned back to their own grove, with its brambleberries and low-hanging branches and its white carpet of wood sorrel spilling across every horizontal surface. The light and unpinned feeling he’d had at the outset of their walk reasserted itself powerfully, a heady brew worthy of Mot Estrid’s personal tankard. 

He was well out of bounds now, and the thing inside him knew it.

“It’s tradition to jump,” he said. His head buzzed with a dizzying sense of freedom. 

“So’s going up the Warren, but I reckon we’re better off up here, yeah?”

Merlin left the edge of the overlook and squatted by the firepit, feeling with a questing tendril of _something_ for the ball of dried grass at its heart. He closed his fingers on empty air - the campfire snapped to life with the soft _whoomph_ of a cloth being snatched from a table. 

Will did not even blink. He tossed a few precautionary stones around the campfire, nudging them into place with his foot. “I’ll go and get us some water." He flicked a smaller stone at Merlin, and Merlin snagged it without raising a finger, arresting its momentum in midair and punting it away, sending it sailing off into the trees. 

Will vanished into the woods, while Merlin wrestled down a leaping exultation. They really _weren’t_ so far from home, he knew, and his mother would never have allowed any of this, but how could he possibly tell her that it wasn’t up to him, sometimes? There was something inside him that had got tired of slinking around behind treelines. It was bigger and hungrier than him. It uncoiled itself from its craggy perch like a fuming dragon of old, its ribcage expanding with burning possibility. 

Merlin drew closer to their little blaze. He closed his fingers around a handful of flames, drawing them carefully out of the fire, the flames fluttering warm and feather-light across his skin. It was as if he’d caught a reed bunting in his hand, the fragile wings beating against his fingers.

Will reemerged from the trees and slung a waterskin in Merlin’s direction. Merlin raised his hand, indicating the tiny fire kindling in the curve of his palm. “You could manage a jump over this one, surely.”

Will opened his mouth to reply, but the unmistakable sound of feet trampling through the brush stopped him short. Merlin slapped his palms down flat on the cool earth and sat down, hard, as if he had merely been warming himself by the fire, as the creature inside him turned tail and fled. Half a moment later, two figures came crashing through the trees, breathless and pink with laughter. 

The first, a tall, heavyset girl with fair hair tied back in a green headband, startled as she registered the grove’s other occupants, her eyes widening. “Oh! It’s you lot.”

The second girl, pale and round-faced, drew up short in her yellow kirtle, looking uneasy.

Merlin would have said hello, but truthfully, he was still trying to crawl back into his skin. His heart banged against his ribcage, powerfully enough that he could feel it all the way down to his toes. He wondered they all didn’t turn around to search for the source of the sound.

The first girl to enter the grove was the first to recover, fittingly, and she broke the awkward staring session with an easy smile. “Well, this is grand! How do, you two?”

“Ellinor,” Will replied, with slightly less enthusiasm. “Nice of you to invite yourself in.”

“Belt up, William; you’re lucky it’s us and not some other fools. We just came up brookside and we’ve seen something positively eye-shriveling - at least we aren’t running around starkers.” She looked to Margoret as if searching for a way to describe what they had encountered; Margoret just closed her eyes. Ellinor smirked. “Don’t go that way when you leave. You’ll lose a chunk off your life, I tell you truly. Nobody ought to live through what we’ve just experienced. I’ll never forget it.”

Will looked pointedly at Merlin. “See? I told you. Loose conkers, left and right.”

“Left, right, and a fiddle in the middle,” Ellinor said ruefully. “I’m so happy you lot have got your clothes on.”

Merlin had to smile.

“Anyhow,” she said. “We’re not out for a romp - ”

“Margoret’s not out for a romp? Tell me another.”

Margoret, who was as sensible and quiet as they came, blushed. 

“ - we were just looking for Adeliz, but I skelled over in the beck and took Meg here down with me, so we’re off home to change.”

Merlin looked more closely and saw that the girls’ clothing was indeed wet and hanging heavily from their shoulders. Ellinor didn’t seem bothered by it, which was typical of her - she and Merlin had been on the same harvest team for five furiously busy days last summer, back when the sun had been hot enough to broil the skin on their backs, and she had not wasted any time whinging about being uncomfortable, but had tossed sheaves of grain up into the wagons with such enthusiastic strength that Merlin, standing in the cart, had had to do precious little work stacking them. She had also, come processing time, given Merlin the winnowing basket and taken the threshing upon herself, swinging a heavy flail to separate grain from husk with more zeal than anyone else in the barn. Will said that this was because she liked beating things with a stick. Merlin, on the other hand, liked to imagine it was because she knew that Merlin himself did not.

It was an unlikely idea, as it would have been with any of his neighbors. But he liked to pretend it was true.

“What did you skell over in the beck for?” Will asked.

Ellinor met his gaze, utterly unembarrassed. “I defy you to look at what I’ve just seen and not fall on your rump. I came around a tree and _wham_. Whistle and bells, right there, an inch from my nose. Not a peep of warning. You’d think people would have the decency to make a bit of noise - but no. I felt like I’d taken a threshing flail to the face. I nearly _did_ take a threshing flail to the face, in a manner of speaking.” She looked at Margoret. “It was that close. Flapping around.”

Will groaned. Margoret covered her eyes. Ellinor just nodded. “I wish I’d covered mine, as well. I really wish I had. But I didn’t have a chance, and now I’m wet back to forth, and it’s no one’s fault, I suppose. You know how it is. It’s just - ”

“ - that season,” finished Margoret and Merlin simultaneously.

Margoret gave him a nervous look, then averted her eyes, wrapping her arms around her damp midsection. 

“Can I offer you a coat?” he asked, trying not to let it bother him. 

She shook her head slightly, playing with the end of her dark braid, which continued to drip cold creekwater down her front. 

“Are you sure?" he offered again. "I don’t mind.”

She shook her head again. 

He tried not to let that bother him, either, and bent his head to add more kindling to the fire, which was already burning just fine. 

He knew he ought to dislike her for it. Will would dislike her for it, certainly, fervently enough for two people, but Merlin, who was well-aware that he himself had no earthly reason to make excuses for her, just couldn't do it. It wasn't in him. He had once seen her climb all the way to the top of the threshing barn in order to untangle a honey buzzard stuck in a half-finished thatch job. Nobody had asked her to do it, and in fact a number of people had told her specifically not to do it, but up she’d gone even so, ignoring the chuckles of the thatching crew and the teasing of her friends on the ground. She’d come down sliced up from finger to wrist and caked with straw splinters, but she hadn’t seemed to care - she’d just ambled home, skirts trailing in the dust, dreamily watching the bird go drifting upward on a pillar of warm air.

Merlin couldn't resent her, however much it seemed like he should. He _liked_ her, so help him. He liked all of them, every single one of his foolheaded neighbors, despite everything. They were his own folk, fashioned from the same earth; sprung from the same soil; they were spirited, silly, stoic, occasionally stupid people whose ancestors had coaxed lush, fertile meadows out of a valley seeded with nothing but rocks. Their survival here - their continued existence on the extreme outskirts of a kingdom that cared for them very little and gave them even less - was, in Merlin’s opinion, magic beyond anything he possessed. He loved them for it, even when they didn’t love him back. 

It was hard, though, to shake off the sting of their by-now-familiar slaps of rejection.

Ellinor gave Will a sardonic look. “Don’t offer me yours or anything.”

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to.” Will gave Margoret an uncharitable look. “Merlin’s just _friendly_ like that, isn’t he?”

She went a little pink. 

“He’s nice enough to put up with you,” Ellinor replied, sparing them all an awkward silence, “so I suppose that’s something. I wonder you have the patience, Merlin.”

“Well,” Merlin said, forcing himself to stop dwelling on things he could not change, "it is a holiday.”

Will scowled in Merlin’s direction. Ellinor smirked. “Is it terribly taxing?” she asked Merlin. “Only he’s a bit of a grump, don’t you think?”

Will, to Merlin’s great surprise, shucked out of his coat and tossed it disgruntledly at Ellinor’s head. “You’re worse than a nail up, Ellinor.”

Ellinor yanked the coat from her face. “The shirt off his back!” she exclaimed, waving said shirt in Merlin’s direction. “Impossible. I’d make an announcement at Hallmote, but no one would believe it.”

“Make an announcement about the wild conker population,” Will grumbled. “That’s a community-wide problem, that is.”

“And how exactly am I supposed to bring that up, eh? ‘ _Has anyone else got an issue to address?’ ‘Ehm, yeah, Matthew, I’d like to address the issue of our neighbors’ wayward wiggly bits -_ ”

She pulled the shirt on. It should have been too small for her, given that she was as tall as Merlin, but most of Will’s things had belonged to his father before him, and it fit her fine, even if she did have to leave it unbuttoned. “Come down with us,” she offered. “Last I heard they were about to roast the lord's provision. We can have a bit of dinner.”

Will’s expression soured immediately. The ‘lord’s provision’ was a gift from the local lord, typically a single ram and occasionally a boar, offered at Beltane to every village within a particular manor’s jurisdiction, even to remote hamlets whose contact with the manor during the rest of the year was typically limited to quarter-day collections of taxes, fines, and fees. This yearly gift of flesh was ostensibly evidence of the manor’s generosity toward its subjects, though the irony of the local lord offering his tenants a single ram on one feast day whilst demanding from them tributary chickens, eggs, hogs, dairy goods, and grain on all others was not lost on Merlin, and certainly not on Will, who had flat-out refused to send Yuletide hens to the manor for three years running, despite increasingly frustrated appeals from certain of the village’s adults. 

Will looked at Ellinor now as if he deeply regretted handing over his shirt. Ellinor rolled her eyes at him. “Oh, don’t get a monk on, William. I was just offering.”

“Have I said anything?”

“No. But we've heard it all before. You can stay up here if you like; it’s no skin off my back. It’ll be nice, now I think of it, to have a bit of Beltane dinner without listening to your speechifying.”

“Who’s speechifying? You’re the one flapping your tongue.”

“Cos you’re looking at me like I killed your cow. It’s just a fat old ram, William. Pop down off your high horse.”

Will narrowed his eyes. “They fattened it on grain we threshed, Ellinor. It’s not like they’ve given us a present. It was ours to begin with.”

“Then maybe you ought to put some of it in your belly! Go on, William. Enjoy the fruit of your labors.”

Merlin - and Ellinor too, he would wager - was well aware that Will would rather eat a bag of nails, and that he would do it, too, to make his point, if only nails weren’t so exorbitantly expensive to replace. But for once, Will didn’t press his point further. Perhaps he was remembering last year, when a similar argument had involved rather more participants and ended with Quinn’s deeply unfortunate and regrettably memorable “You’re like a dog with a bone, William! You don’t know when to let go or shut your mouth,” which had brought the academic portion of the debate to an abrupt close and initiated a more hands-on phase to the proceedings.

Merlin didn’t think any of them were eager to repeat that experience, not least because Ellinor was built like a tree and could certainly have dunked both of them in the beck, if she’d felt the urge. 

A short silence fell over them all. “Right,” Will said finally. “You’ll be off home now, then.” 

Ellinor sighed. “Oh, don’t be a mardy arse, William. Nobody meant anything by it.”

Merlin stirred up the fire and attempted to change the subject. “Do you want to warm up first? It’s a long way down.”

Ellinor pointed at him. “You see?” she said, looking at Will. “Someone up here knows how to be friendly.” She gave Will an irksome smile. “Maybe we _will_ stay. Since you’re obviously so chuffed to see us.”

Margoret sighed under her breath. Merlin was fairly certain that she, at least, wanted nothing more to do with any plan involving their continued socialization, but there was no need for her to have worried. Will strode forward and grasped Ellinor’s upper arms, steering her firmly in the direction of the easiest exit from the clearing. “Sorry!” he said. “This spot’s taken.”

She put up only a trifling degree of resistance. “But we’ve barely got started!” she protested. “Don’t you want to whinge at us some more? Nobody’s even called anybody a footlicker yet - ”

“Bye now, Ellinor!”

“Hang on, now, we climbed up here same as you - ”

“Faster feet plow farther furrows,” said Will, marching her away. “Better luck next year.”

She twisted her head to grin at him. “What is this, a private party? You know that’s what the Warren’s for.”

Will cackled, ushering her unceremoniously away into the trees. “Tarra, Ellinor! Off you go! Watch the path; don’t take a tumble.” He released her at the edge of the clearing, shoving her into the woods. “Not til you get to the Warren, at least.”

“You’re asking for a threp in the stones, William,” she said, shaking her head warningly. But she reached into her pocket and drew out a flattened oatcake. “There’s for you both,” she said, passing the bannock to Will. “It’ll be a bit crumbly, but you’ll manage. Meg, let’s crack on - ”

The other girl hesitated at the edge of the wood. “Merlin - ”

Merlin looked up, surprised. 

Margoret's soft voice spoke again. “Mot Hunith said she wants you home before nones.” 

They regarded each other for a moment, the flames crackling away between them. “Thank you,” Merlin said.

She nodded at him. He smiled.

Maybe it wasn't an apology, exactly. But it was something.

The girls departed, Ellinor with a last _blessed beltane_ to the both of them. Will and Merlin waited until the sounds of their passage through the undergrowth had completely faded, and then another long while on top of that, until the former calm of the grove reasserted itself, the crickets once again venturing a few tentative cheeps.

Will sighed heavily and plopped down on the ground by the fire. “I’ll tell you this for naught, Merlin,” he said. “People round here can’t keep their nebs to themselves, and that’s a fact.”

Merlin brushed the dirt off his palms. “They didn’t mean any harm.”

Will looked as if he would like to debate that point, but for once, he let the opportunity pass. _A Beltane miracle_ , Merlin reflected - this truly was a magical time.

Merlin watched Will make a perilous attempt to balance the Beltane bannock on two sticks and warm it over the fire. “She took your coat, though.”

Will shrugged. “I’ll have it back tomorrow.”

“You like her, then?”

Will made a disgruntled little noise. “She’s all right.”

“I like her,” Merlin asserted. “She’s, you know...” He thought for a moment, looking for the right word to describe someone who never had very much to say to him but also never directed an unfriendly word his way, which was more than could be said for some. “Neighborly.”

“Neighborly?” Will echoed, with a tut of disdain. “You’ve never had her coming for your head, Merlin. Start a row with her, then we’ll see how neighborly she is. She’s built like a bull. She could put an ox on its back before you could say aye.”

“She could put you on your back faster than that, and you wouldn’t mind, either.”

The ensuing scuffle was brief and woefully one-sided, and Merlin consoled himself with the knowledge that he would be defeated only due to an eminently laudable commitment to play fair. At the very least, he could not be blamed for the loss of the bannock, which fell from its discarded griddle and shriveled up in the center of their campfire, singed to such a degree that not even Merlin’s considerable talents could put the charred nugget of oatmeal back to rights again. He abandoned it to its fate after only a brief, abortive rescue attempt, squirming out from beneath his captor and rolling onto on his back in a springy patch of sorrel. Will collapsed somewhere on the other side of him, and they lay there for a while in the greenery, the fire and their lost oatcake crackling off to one side.

“Now I’m hungry,” Merlin grumbled. The smell of crisped havercake prompted a rumbling in his stomach. 

“Well, you can go and roast the lord’s provision with the rest, if you want. I’m sure they'd all love to have you.”

Merlin turned his head to give Will a reproving look. “If I’d wanted that I’d have gone with the girls. Don’t get tetchy with me.”

Will scowled up at the sky. Merlin let him have it.

Will shook his head. “The _lord’s provision._ What a crock. All our neighbors coming out of doors to say ‘thank you, sir,’ like they didn’t fatten that ram themselves.” Will watched the smoke from their fire twine up to the canopy, his expression as clouded as the sky overhead. “Don’t they know that these people would just as soon we starved?”

Merlin reached over and snagged a nearby piece of kindling, which had been kicked halfway out of the fire during their scuffle, the crevices in the bark at one end glowing like red-hot tunnels of woodworm. He turned it over in his hands, the burning end smearing trails of light across his field of vision. “Obviously they know that,” he said. “What do you suppose they ought to do about it? It’s Beltane. Sometimes people just want to be happy.”

He looked over at Will, who would never be satisfied with that answer. 

“And sometimes people _never_ do,” Merlin added, poking Will significantly in the arm. 

Ellinor or Margoret could never have gotten away with it. But Merlin wasn’t either of them.

Will smiled despite himself. “All right, Merlin.”

They were silent for a while longer.

“I think I ought to start sleeping out every night,” Merlin said, twiddling the glowing brand in his fingers. “This is loads more comfortable than my pallet at home, no pillow and all.”

“As if that lot down there doesn’t have enough to say about you already,” Will replied. “Can you imagine? _‘What’s that out there in the field? Oh, not to worry, it’s just Merlin having a little lie-down.’_ ”

Merlin shrugged. A star-shaped sorrel blossom tickled one of his ears. He couldn’t bring himself to mind what that lot down there had to say about him. Not tonight.

He returned his gaze to the forested roof over their heads. The earth felt as if it had folded in on itself to cradle him better, the pile of flowering greenery a softer cushion than any number of blankets laid out on his floor at home. A medley of crickets and birds encircled the grove with music, an elaborate early warning system against any other unexpected visitors. What patches of sky were visible through the web of tree branches above were uniformly overcast, as if the smoke from a thousand Beltane fires had clogged up the sky. 

Inside himself, the curious creature which had run for cover earlier poked a tentative head out of its hole. 

Merlin blew carefully on the end of the smoldering piece of kindling, sending a puff of sparks into the air. He reached for the well of possibility within himself, calling upon things he was not supposed to name - _gifts_ , to his mother; _funny business_ , to the rest of the village - and nudged the embers higher, scattering them in a delicate sweep across the underside of the canopy.

“Pretty,” Will murmured, eyeing the curtain of makeshift stars. “You’ve got a real future in streetside entertainment, you know that?”

Merlin wasn’t sure that he had a real future anywhere, sometimes. But it was a nice thought.

He tossed the piece of kindling into the fire and relaxed back into the cool tangle of greenery, his homemade stars flickering orange and gold overhead. By morning they would be cinders in the wind, and he would be back at the bottom of the mountain.

“Your mother’s going to kill you,” Will remarked.

Merlin remembered suddenly what Margoret had said. He sighed. “It is what it is. I’m not sorry.”

“Nor I,” shrugged Will. “I’m not the one that's going to get flayed alive, am I?”

Merlin glanced over at Will, who was watching Merlin’s hanging sparks. “I don’t know why I came out here with you.”

“Blessed Beltane to you, too,” Will replied. “Try not to set the canopy on fire.”

Merlin looked up at his glowing experiment. “Here’s to not burning down the mountain." He had no libation to pour out over their campfire, but he poured a little bit more of himself into it instead. The flames crackled higher, plainly, proudly visible.

“Hear hear,” Will agreed, shifting in the greenery, getting comfortable. “But - you’ll wake me if you do, won’t you? I’m not the one of us who’s supposed to get roasted, remember.”

Merlin kicked him lazily, then closed his eyes, drifting off by the light of an unnatural fire and an even more unnatural sky. Above him, his magic clambered from one dangling spark to the next, like a kitten scrambling across a thatched roof, chasing bugs and clawing excitedly at the straw. 

Merlin, unlike Margoret, _was_ out for a romp. And the creature he carried inside him knew exactly how to make the most of a rare evening outside its cage.


	3. Litha

The moment the third sheep emptied its bladder onto his shoes, Merlin knew that this day was one he ought to have skipped.

He did not know how to skip an entire day, of course. It wasn’t something that that had ever happened to him accidentally, and it certainly wasn’t something he had ever done on purpose. He didn’t know if it was even possible, magic or no, but he was pretty certain that he and the rest of his neighbors were approximately one full bladder away from finding out, and when his mother came pleading to him _‘but how could they have found out this way?’_ he would just have to explain to her that a person could only take so much pee, and pray that she understood.

He unstuck his damp trouser legs from his skin, swallowing a groan. 

Shearing was meant to be a one-person job. It was meant to be quick. And in years past, it always had been - ewes and wethers alike slung over on the ground between Merlin’s legs, flopping about like rag dolls as he rolled them from one position to the next, the animals bursting into only the occasional sputter of easily-quelled activity as they made a half-hearted break for it and then recognized the futility of escape. A few short minutes, and the captive, quiet creature would be released, white and close-clipped and free of the shaggy mats it had dragged around for the past twelve-month.

Not so this year, however. Whether this generation had been conceived under the full moon, or weaned a half-minute too early, or otherwise hexed by some malicious external influence, Merlin didn’t know, but the fact of the matter was that last year’s crop of lambs, now fully grown, were just - there was no other word for it - _evil_. They fought against the prospect of a simple haircut like creatures possessed, utterly unhinged and completely contrary to a normal sheep’s rational impulses. They kicked with spring-loaded legs, and bucked with spines more flexible than a cat's, and their stubborn, venom-addled brains boasted one characteristic and one characteristic only: a violent and absolute unwillingness to be put on their rumps. 

They also, to everyone’s extreme misfortune, sported cleats sharper than the shearing scissors, and they weren’t afraid to weaponize them in a crisis.

“Ey up!” Will hollered, emerging from the sheepcote with his hands wrapped under their next opponent’s jaw. The creature barely came up to his waist, but it skittered between his knees as he herded it away from the pen, its murderous bleats joining a cacophony of similar noises emanating from every corner of the sheepfold. 

“Bugger this entire lot for a lark!” Will grunted. He stuck his finger into the sheep’s mouth, twisting her head back towards her flank and pushing down on her rump with his other hand, flipping the bucking creature expertly onto her backside and transferring her to Merlin’s waiting arms. “Hold tight,” he warned, yanking a leather cord off his shoulders. “They wriggle like eels.”

And kicked like horses, Merlin already knew. He caught several blows around his elbows and midsection before grabbing both front limbs around the foreshanks, which saved them one trouble but left the ewe’s head free to crash itself repeatedly into Merlin’s stomach. Will bound the rear legs together at the hocks and snatched up the shears, pressing one hand into the hip joint to keep the legs extended while he used the other to start clipping. It was nearly impossible for him to get a smooth blow with the blades across the belly, or anywhere else. Even restrained, the ewe struggled like no sheep Merlin had encountered in his life, save the three they’d already shorn.

On either side of them, their fellow laborers were having similar troubles. To their right, one particularly boisterous ewe escaped from Quinn and went tearing off around the sheepfold with half a fleece dragging from her neck, prompting a fruitless chase. It would have been entertaining in any other circumstance, but at this particular moment Merlin did not have the breath to spare for snickering at his neighbors, even if said neighbor was one who gave him funny looks at Hallmote and an offensively wide berth around the village oven. 

“Roll her,” Will directed. 

Merlin groaned and shifted his weight. The sheep seemed to sense instantly the minuscule loosening of her restraints and exploded into another paroxysm of thrashing, squealing in Merlin’s ear as if Will were peeling her skin away instead of her woolen coat. 

“I’ve got an idea,” Merlin gasped, fighting with the flurry of flailing limbs. “You hold her, I’ll shear.”

“We’re both holding her,” Will growled, flipping the sheep’s hocks around to expose the remaining unsheared flank, then hissing as the cloven hind hooves tore themselves from his grasp and crashed into his ankles. “Bugger all this for a _lark!_ ” 

This last word was delivered in a frustrated yell, but no one even looked at him. Yelped imprecations echoed across the field as hooves struck flesh. Panicked sheep bleated in a deafening chorus. Around the edges of the fold, Quinn stumbled helplessly after his runaway ewe.

Two hours later, they sat panting in a slump on the grass, dirtier perhaps than they’d ever been, every fold of fabric on them stinking of wool grease. The sheepfold looked less like their green pasture of old and more like a battlefield from Mot Alba’s Samhain stories, an array of half-dead villagers scattered across the trampled grass and heaps of fleeces hacked up and strewn across the field like the discarded carcasses of so many vanquished enemy soldiers. 

A cluster of shorn sheep bleated incessantly in a corner of the pasture. The group was much smaller than the unshorn flock still milling around in the holding pen.

“Right,” Will said, holding cramped hands out in front of him as if his fingers would never uncurl. “We’re never doing that again.”

Merlin groaned and slumped forward until his forehead connected with the dirt. “Yes, we are! We’ve got to do it all over again tomorrow.”

A scrap of greasy fleece smacked the back of his neck. “What do you need to say a thing like that for, Merlin? Nobody asked, did they?” 

Merlin collapsed onto the ground, rolling over onto his back. It was the only part of him that hadn’t yet been tenderized by repeated kicks and scrapes. Bits of wool fiber and plant matter drifted through the air above his face, churned up by kicking hooves and swinging limbs. The fiery circle of the sun beat down on him viciously, its white corona climbing ever higher.

It figured, Merlin thought, a bead of sweat trickling down his temple. The longest days of the year would of course be the ones he wished would come to the quickest close.

Will forced himself to sit up straighter, zeroing in on a lone figure at the opposite edge of the field. “How do, Matthew!” he shouted. “Have we finished with this cock-up yet?”

Merlin slapped Will wearily on the thigh, but Matthew didn’t appear to have heard a word Will had said. The unofficial director of the day’s activities was, impressively, one of very few people left standing, but the flock’s unprecedented resistance had obviously knocked him sideways. He was staring around the field with the dazed expression of a man who couldn’t sort out what had gone wrong.

“Look at him,” Will muttered. “He’s all upskittled.”

“Aren’t we all." Merlin let out a long, wheezing sigh, his battered ribs creaking in protest. “I haven’t got another run like that in me.”

“Nor I.” Will stared at the too-small mass of shaved creatures huddled in a corner of the pasture. “What’s the _matter_ with these beasts?” he cried. “They’re hardly even sheep.”

Merlin shrugged. “They’re cursed.”

“Are they?”

“I don’t know, Will. I’m only joking.”

“Well,” Will grumbled, “un-curse them, if they are. I can’t do this again tomorrow.”

That was a lie, and they both knew it. There simply wasn’t room in their lives for not doing the things that needed doing. Soil needed to be turned. Seed needed to be sown. Grain needed to be threshed, cows and goats to be milked. Sheep, too, needed to be shorn, cursed or no.

Merlin rubbed sweat from his forehead, aware that he had succeeded merely in smearing dirt all over his face. “How about my idea, then? For tomorrow.”

“The one where I hold the beast and you slice your own fingers off?” Will shook his head. “No, I don’t fancy it.”

Merlin scowled, but put that way, he didn’t much fancy it either. He watched as Will rolled the fleeces into bundles, one side the snarled grey of dirty washwater, the other soft and creamy white. 

“All right,” Merlin said. “I’ve had another think.”

“Oh, aye? What’s that?”

“You hold the thing, and I’ll run for the border.”

Will snorted. “Oh, is _that_ how it is!”

“ _Or_ you can come with,” Merlin amended. “I’m not fussed about it. So long as I’m not here when that fellow comes out the chute.” He pointed into the holding pen, indicating a wether who stood about a hand taller than the rest. The creature's dark eyes glittered with a frighteningly un-sheepy malice.

Will considered the wether a moment. Then, glancing sidelong at Merlin, he jabbed a thumb at the edge of the paddock, where Quinn’s futile chase for the escaped ewe continued, albeit with an abundance of bellyaching and much dragging of the feet. 

“Don’t worry,” Will said, a spark of good, clean fun returning to his face. “We’ll give that one to Quinn.”


	4. Lammas

If the sun climbed any higher, its boiling rays were going to actually start flaying thatch from the village’s steeply sloping roofs. 

Will bent over and leaned upon his handheld sickle as if it were the only thing keeping him on his feet. “I’m _mafted_ ,” he gasped. “I’ve never been so hot in my entire life.”

Merlin tried to think of some past occasion he could cite to prove Will wrong, but nothing came to mind. Merlin had never been so hot in his entire life, either. He felt as if he were trapped inside the village bakehouse, though at least if he’d been locked in there he could have enjoyed the shade of a roof over his head. Out here, in the unprotected stubble of a half-harvested field, the sun battered his bare shoulders like a physical weapon.

“Take something else off,” Merlin said, bracing both hands on his knees. The air that he sucked into his lungs was thick with chaff.

“Like what?” Will croaked. “I’m practically in the scud as it is.”

That was true enough. They and the rest of their neighbors had long since stripped down to flushed skins, shirts and shoes gone, skirts tied higher, and even outer trousers discarded, the legs of the loose, lighter under-braeis unlaced from ankle to knee and rolled high, tucked up into waistbands. Everyone looked as if they were about to go wading in a knee-deep river ( _if_ _only_ , Merlin wished, dreaming of the relief a dip in the pond would provide) clad in a scrap of pilgrims’ white linen. 

“Do you want to swap places?” Merlin asked.

Will straightened, the small, curved sickle dangling limply from one hand. His hair was a full two shades lighter than it had been earlier in the summer, and his fringe was completely plastered down to his forehead. “No. It’s all the same.”

Merlin had to agree with that. It didn’t matter which job a person had today; both the reapers and the binders who followed them were all broken at the waist and burnt to the same charred crisp. Every dripping inch of Merlin itched, irritated by prickly slivers of chaff, and his hands stung with straw splinters, and his back was on fire, not just from the sun but from the constant bending down to pick up and tie into sheaves the stalks Will cut as they moved up the furrow. 

He squinted up at the sun. It was blindingly white, as if it had bleached away even the pale blue of the surrounding sky. Merlin wondered, idly, if he could make it rain.

“Now here’s a right little mooncalf,” rumbled someone behind him. “Have you seen something pretty up there, Merlin?”

Merlin exchanged an uncomfortable glance with Will. Rosamund’s man Aelfric was the last third of their binding team today, and Merlin did not care for him at all. He was, for once, joined in this sentiment by the vast majority of his neighbors, who, for all their faults, were mostly good and honest folk committed to good and honest work, doing the things that needed doing with an eye to their neighbors’ wellbeing. Aelfric, on the other hand, disappeared for months on end to take his pleasure in Pedders Hope or Isbridge, and never mind what would happen to his woman or her two children. He left Rosamund to lean on Audrey, her sister, and Matthew, by extension, returning only when his pockets had been emptied of pennies and the opportunities to drink himself stupid had dried up. 

Merlin could not remember ever seeing him home during a harvest. He usually returned in the slack season, to ride out the winter on the fat of everyone else’s labor. But he must have run out of money sooner than expected, or encountered some other trouble, because he had reappeared a few weeks ago, and while he might have been hoping to pass the summer in the same lazy way in which he spent his winters, the fact of the matter was that nobody (Merlin had to suppress a small surge of satisfaction, remembering) - _nobody_ escaped Matthew’s meticulous scheduling at harvest time. 

Last week’s Hallmote had made it abundantly (if politely) clear that Aelfric could labor alongside the rest of them, or he could leave. Merlin, privately, thought that most of the adults had been pulling for the latter option, but of course nobody in Ealdor had ever been that lucky. 

So the law had been laid down, and Aelfric suffered alongside his neighbors, but because he cultivated no land of his own, he was shuffled around from plot to plot to help those who were either incapable of physical labor or out on their own, and Will, who had no family and had been managing his land alone from far too early an age, fell reluctantly into this category, meaning he and Merlin had the dubious pleasure of Aelfric’s company for the week.

As if harvest works weren’t painful enough on their own. 

“Cloud-gazing, are we?” Aelfric’s close-cropped pate was radish-red and gleaming with sweat, for all that he had done hardly any work to speak of.

“No,” Merlin said, fighting the urge to slink away into the uncut wheat on either side of them.

“Not looking for a bird to fly away with, are we?”

“No. Just resting.”

Aelfric rounded his stubbly mouth into a circle of surprise. “Oh, aye? Didn’t think that was allowed.” 

That was a bit rich, for someone who had done virtually nothing all day. Aelfric had spent most of the morning taking absurdly long breaks to “answer nature’s call,” which Merlin supposed was still better than the first time Aelfric had relieved himself, when he had taken a piss directly into a row of Will’s unharvested wheat.

"No, indeed,” Aelfric said, nodding to himself. “I thought it was all work round here, all the time.”

“It is,” said Will. "For some."

Merlin supposed the letter of those words would technically pass an elder’s respectfulness test, but the implied message was hardly a mystery. 

“If you’re tired, you can go on and have a bit of a break,” Will added.

 _Please_ , Merlin begged, speared with a sudden, desperate hopefulness. It was all right for Will, who was reaping and worked on his own, some distance ahead of them, but Merlin, who was binding in tandem with Aelfric, had been subjected to an unceasing barrage of niggling comments all day, and did not like being called mooncalf, or woods-colt, or Merlin-come-by-chance, or any other number of rude nicknames designed to be nasty but delivered without fear of reprisal under the careful cover of chummy ribbing. 

It wasn’t the same as being needled by his agemates. You couldn’t just toss hands with grown folk, no matter how unpopular they were.

“I don’t think his masterfulness Lord Matthew would like that very much,” Aelfric said, face splitting into an unpleasant grin. “What’s that he says? _Don’t stop when you’re tired, stop when you’re done?_ Isn’t that what he says, lad?”

“Everybody says that,” Will said repressively. “Merlin, did you say you wanted to have a go at this?” He indicated the hand sickle.

Merlin did want to swap places with him, badly. But he shook his head no.

“You sure?”

Aelfric waved him off. “He said he’s sure, didn’t he, lad?” He smirked at Merlin. “We’ll stick to the easy work, won’t we, Merlin?”

“Easy enough, when you’re not doing it.” Will eyed Aelfric for another minute, not bothering to disguise his dislike. Then he flipped the sickle over in his hand, grasped a bundle of wheat, and sliced through the stalks a few handsbreadths below the ears. “Fine, then. Let’s crack on.”

Will continued up the furrow at a good pace. Aelfric made no effort to keep up with Will’s reaping and left the largest portions of fallen grain for Merlin to gather, and soon enough he and Merlin had fallen behind again, crouching together among the cut stalks.

“This is a right kick in the touch-box,” Aelfric said. “Harvesting someone else’s grain.”

“You’ll have a bushel of it for helping,” Merlin replied, suppressing his irritation. “That’s fair, don’t you think?”

“Oh, aye,” Aelfric drawled, “I’ll have that. And a bit of extra.” He tipped a handful of fallen grain into his pocket, watching Merlin as if waiting to be challenged, but Merlin held his tongue. There would be plenty of time to report illicit gleaning later, when the two of them weren’t trapped alone in the relative isolation of a half-harvested furrow. 

“And what about you, Merlin?” Aelfric asked, eyeing Merlin like he was hoping to be entertained. “What’ll you have?”

Merlin swept a swath of stalks into a bundle. “Nothing. I’m just helping.”

“No bushel for you?”

“I don’t need it.”

“That’s good,” Aelfric said, “because your friend there can’t afford it, I don’t think.” He watched calculatingly as Will moved even farther up the furrow. “How much does that one owe them up at the manor?”

Merlin frowned and tied his sheaf of wheat together with a length of straw. Will’s situation with the manor was nobody’s business, which, in a tiny hamlet like theirs, meant that of course everybody knew everything about it. “All of us owe something,” he said evasively.

“Oh, aye, but with his old dad owing still, though. The man never did work off that arrestment, did he?”

“He wasn’t _arrested._ ” The reply popped out before Merlin could stop himself. He did not mean to get further involved in conversation with Aelfric, but some things were just - “It was a fine.”

“A fine’s what they drub you with after you’ve been arrested, Merlin-by-Blow. And if you can’t pay it they send you up North to work it off in arms.” He whipped a stalk of grain through the air like a dagger. “I went up that way myself, once. Not under conscription, like. Just…” He thought about the right word to use. “ _Helping_ ,” he settled on, with a little smirk at Merlin. “It was good money. You might think on it.”

Aelfric stretched, extending both arms behind his back and cracking all ten meaty knuckles. “Course, I don’t expect William’s old dad made very much. Wasn’t _employed_ long enough, if you know what I mean. More’s the pity for us. Crumbly place like this needs a good woodwright, same way an in-season cow needs a screw.” He shook his head, sunlight glinting off his splotchy crown. “This is a right cack-hole, this place.”

“It was looking pretty enough a fortnight ago,” Merlin said. He forced himself to keep his tone level. “You hadn’t got here yet, though.”

Aelfric stopped halfway through tying a sheaf that was nowhere near the appropriate size. A grin spread slowly over his face, revealing decay-studded teeth. “Merlin!” he whistled. “You're a wick little catch-colt, you are!”

Merlin recoiled inwardly. Aelfric tossed his own sheaf of grain away from where they were squatting, fixing Merlin with an intently curious look. “Merlin,” he said to himself. “Merlin, Merlin, Merlin.” He pointed one scarred finger at Merlin’s chest. “That’s a funny name for a fellow.”

Merlin did not think anyone with a name as archaic and unfashionable as Aelfric had much ground to stand on there, but kept his mouth shut. 

“Your mum must’ve fancied birds, then.”

Merlin shook his head. “No.”

“You sure?”

“Fairly certain, yes.”

“There _was_ a bird, though,” Aelfric mused. “Day you came along. Great big bloody thing, claws like a bear. Shot right out of the sky.”

Merlin tucked his head down and focused on wrapping his next sheaf. He had heard this story before.

“It ate a snake,” Aelfric recalled. “Sliced it open from top to tail, right there in front of your door. Left guts all over the stoop.” 

Aelfric’s pile of unbound grain lay untouched, as Aelfric himself watched Merlin with a gleam in his eyes. “What do you think about that, Merlin?”

A new layer of sweat broke out at the back of Merlin’s neck. “I don’t know,” he said, his fingers fumbling over the knot he was tying. “It was an unlucky snake.”

Aelfric leaned over. “What do you suppose it _means_?” he urged.

Merlin’s skin crawled. He tried to start his knot over again, but his fingers were not cooperating. “I don’t know. Nothing.”

Aelfric leaned in so close that Merlin could smell his rancid breath. All Merlin could look at was his dirty hands, which rested on dirtier knees. Those were not working hands. They looked like they could strangle Merlin in one windpipe-crushing moment, on his back in the wheat with a knee to his chest, where no one would see. They looked like they were good for wringing rabbit necks and breaking crockery.

“I know what it means,” Aelfric murmured in Merlin’s ear.

Merlin stomach turned itself completely inside out. His eyes searched wildly for the little shape that was Will’s back at the other end of the furrow, silently begging him to _turn around; come back!_

Will was not afraid of this man. Will was not afraid of anybody.

Aelfric’s warm breath wafted into Merlin’s nose. “I know what it means,” he said slowly. “I’ll tell you exactly what it means.” 

Merlin held his breath, blood thundering in his ears. 

Aelfric nodded knowingly to himself. “It’s an _ill wind_ , Merlin. An ill wind as blows no good.” 

Aelfric drew back, sitting on his haunches for a moment. His eyes roved over Merlin’s frozen form. Then he threw his head back and laughed, slapping one massive mitt down on his knees. “An unlucky snake!” he cried. “You go on and believe it, lad. The rest of these folk might be soft in the head, but Aelfric knows a bad omen when he sees one.” 

He gathered his last bundle and stood, dumping the sheaf carelessly onto the stack where it should have been left to stand and dry. The shabbily-tied binding burst, spilling grain onto the ground in a golden wave. Aelfric raised his eyebrows as if to ask what, exactly, Merlin was going to do about it, then trod heavily across the carpet of stalks as he departed.

Merlin forced himself to move. He gathered up Aelfric’s mess and tied it properly, leaning it against the stook. A hot breeze ruffled the feathery ears of wheat, producing a dry, whispering hiss.

 _An ill wind_ , Merlin thought. _A bad omen._

A sickening weight settled into the pit of his stomach. He could beg off and go home -

But Will would kill him. And Will and Aelfric would kill each _other_ , if they were left alone. 

Merlin wiped the sweat from his face and went back to work.

The day wore on. Aelfric did return, eventually, accompanied by a very bad-tempered escort in the form of Ellinor’s father, who had found Aelfric having a little lie-down under the trees. Merlin worked in silence, keeping his head down, as the skin at the back of his neck tightened in the suffocating heat. He lost track of the number of sheaves he bound - or re-bound, in the case of Aelfric’s shoddy work, which Aelfric now seemed to feel confident enough leaving on the ground for Merlin to deal with. At one point, a shadow passed over the field, prompting multiple heads to pop up from the waving expanse of wheat and peer upward with almost comically hopeful stares, but the valiant wisp of cloud evaporated instantly. 

Will left the field only once, to go and sharpen his sickle, at which point Merlin had to actively restrain himself from grabbing Will's wrist and blurting out _do not leave me alone with this bloke._ But Aelfric, defying expectations, said nothing further during Will’s absence. In fact, he said virtually nothing at all for the rest of the day, though Merlin could feel the hairs on the back of his neck prickling at times and knew he was being stared at.

By the time they reached the end of the working day, all of them were more grain than human, chaff embedded in their hair, on their eyelashes, under the sweat-soaked folds of their braeis. Will rejoined Merlin at the end of the furrow after slicing his last bunch of stalks, near the footpath which looped around the field’s southernmost edge. Aelfric, for his part, had abandoned the work effort a half hour earlier, baring his stained teeth in a knowing grin as he’d left Merlin to it.

Will chucked his sickle down to the ground, burying its point in the parched earth as children too young to participate in the reaping ran along the path collecting tools. “I’m going in the Ea,” he declared.

Merlin tied off his last sheaf with fingers that were almost too blistered to manage a knot in the straw. “The cows have been in there all week.”

Will shook his head, a shower of straw dust falling from his hair. “I don’t care. I’d take a bath in piss right now if it meant I could wash this lot off.”

Merlin hesitated, staring across the field in the direction of the river. The Ea spilled down from the White Mountains in a series of broad, rocky shelves, widening and slowing down as it wound through the valley proper before being joined in the Forest of Ascetir by a number of smaller tributaries and streams, gathering speed again before it finally disappeared over the border. Ealdor’s livestock had been taken down from their customary summer pastures and driven in and out of it all week in an anxious attempt to prevent any more cattle from falling down sunstricken, but that wasn’t what gave Merlin pause - stepping into a pile of cow dung would probably feel better than being repeatedly stabbed in the feet by the stubble of chopped grain stalks and the stingers of wrathful insects. But getting anywhere near the river at all would mean he would have to join the vast number of people who seemed to be having the same thoughts as Will, a steady stream of neighbors laying tools aside and heading down the path toward the sheepwash. 

Tall, serious Duncan ambled past them with his parents, followed by Adeliz and her clutch of siblings, her face sweaty and more deeply browned than its usual tawny gold. Ellinor breezed by, chatting animatedly with her mother, her skirts knotted an audacious inch above the knees, something for which she’d caught a disapproving remark or two earlier from some of their neighbors, though she had shut down further commentary by loudly offering to take her kirtle clean off, if it would make people happier. Peter hurtled past her clad in just his braeis, his entire torso flaming red and his hair bleached white by the sun, hollering what sounded like some kind of strangled plea for the oblivion of death by drowning. A number of their other neighbors followed at a more sedate pace, in varying states of undress.

Aelfric reappeared just behind the last group, his grizzled face beaded with unearned sweat, his eyes lingering on Merlin just a moment too long.

A hand touched Merlin’s elbow. “You’re blocking traffic, my love.”

Merlin tore himself away from Aelfric’s glittering eyes and met his mother’s gaze. Her hair peeked out from its customary scarf, though the plain fabric remained tightly wound around her head - Merlin knew perfectly well how many times she must have rewrapped it over the course of the day. 

“Where are you off to?” she asked, inspecting his sun-roasted torso.

Merlin exchanged a look with Will. He had not technically agreed to go down to the Ea yet, but Will would probably drag him there whether Merlin acquiesced or not. 

“To have a wash,” he said, resigning himself to it. “I won’t be long.”

“Where are the rest of your things?”

“Er…” He craned his head around to look at the field over her shoulder. He wasn’t sure, exactly, where he had dropped his various outergarments. The shirts, he and Will had discarded almost immediately, somewhere in the first furrow. Trousers, belts, and shoes had come off later, abandoned with almost vindictive satisfaction somewhere further along the row. “Someplace. I’ll fetch them on the way back.”

“Please, ma’m,” Will chimed in. “You’ve got to let him have a bath. You can’t have him in your house like that. He reeks like the devil’s ears.

“Hello, William,” his mother said, smiling with tolerant amusement. “And how are you today?”

“Hot,” Will replied. He was a pathetic sight - dripping sweat, barefoot, clad only in braeis from waist to knee, dirt-streaked as a hog in among the turnips. 

Hunith patted Merlin on the back, gently enough not to irritate his blooming sunburn. She ushered him onto the path, where the crowd had thinned considerably. “Go on,” she conceded. “Be home for supper. Don’t forget your clothes.”

“I won’t.”

“Thank you, ma’m!” Will said, flashing a smile. “I’ll have him cleaned up right sharpish.”

Hunith waved them on. Down the footpath he and Will went, following the edge of the field, trailing after their distant neighbors. Merlin tried not to think about how many people were waiting for him down there, or how many would take their leave once they saw him coming. 

He rubbed at the back of his neck. His head was starting to hurt.

Halfway down the hill, Will stopped. He nudged Merlin, pointing in a more northerly direction. “Let’s go up to Ea Hlaedrede.”

The Stepladder was a long ways upriver, so named for the series of wide, shelf-like pools that the Ea plunged into before pursuing a meandering course deeper into the valley. It was a much farther walk, but none of their neighbors would ever hike all that way just to swim, not for a simple wash. 

“I thought you said you were hot,” Merlin said to Will, unwilling to force Will into a hike despite how badly he himself would prefer the more solitary swim. “It’s much farther.”

“Yeah, but you won’t have to knock nadgers with any cattle up there, will you?” 

“And you won’t have to talk to any of our neighbors. Convenient, that.”

“We’ve been penned in with our blasted neighbors all day, Merlin,” said Will, making a face. “How interesting do you think these people are?”

On another day, perhaps, Merlin might have been willing to argue their neighbors' case, but today he decided to follow Will without comment. The village could boil today, as far as Merlin was concerned. He was beyond hot, and he was beyond tired, and a dull ache was starting to thud at the back of his skull, as his bare back crawled with a thousand prickly barbs of sunburn. The image of Aelfric’s narrowed eyes rose in his memory, and he quickened his pace, ignoring the worsening headache this occasioned. 

Grassy pastures roughened slowly into rockier, less cultivated heath, and the Ea, formerly a broad, lazy ribbon, became a stepladder of large pools bounded by flat stones, each pool spilling over into the next at a gentle incline. By the time Merlin and Will drew up alongside the lowest basin, which was deep enough for swimming, Merlin was beginning to regret their decision to come all the way out here. The dull pain at the back of his skull had transformed into a screamer of a headache, and he felt as if he had lost about six stone in sweat since earlier that morning. His legs trembled, and every muscle in his body burned, and he could not seem to get quite enough air - he did not even know why he had ever wanted to go swimming today in the first place. He just wanted to lie down.

He stopped at the threshold of a broad stone shelf which jutted out into the basin, his pulse banging noticeably against the bones of his wrists.

“If I drown,” Will commented, leaping off the shelf and splashing down into the water, braeis and all, “don’t come and fetch me. It’ll mean I’ve decided I don’t want to do any reaping tomorrow.”

A relentless mallet and chisel chipped away at Merlin’s skull. Merlin did not want to do any reaping tomorrow, either. Aelfric would have come up with something more to say to him by then, he was sure.

Head throbbing, he wandered farther out onto the stony shelf, whose slick surface was so level with the water that some parts of it were submerged. Beyond the shelf, the sun hit the broad pool at an angle and skipped over it like a stone, as if the basin were lined with newly minted coins, their shiny faces glinting in the sun.

The light stabbed at Merlin's eyes, lancing into his pounding skull. His mouth felt horribly dry. He tried to swallow, or cough, but his throat rasped like a whisk broom dragged across a hot stone floor. 

Looking down, he saw the waterline rippling enticingly, inches from his toes. Maybe he could bend over to get a drink. 

Then again...

He blinked, feeling suddenly dizzy. The water looked like it was an impossibly long way down.

A buzzing whine rose in Merlin's ears, drowning out the gurgling of the river. _This isn't right_ , he thought distantly, with a muddled flutter of alarm. His skin felt hot and cold all at once, crawling with pins and needles. He tried to say something to Will, but could not manage to put the words together.

“Get in, you mouse!” Will shouted, but Merlin could barely hear him. 

The shelf swayed under Merlin’s feet. His vision swam, shrinking down to a blurry tunnel. 

This had to be too much sun, he thought woozily. Or not enough to drink.

Or maybe an ill wind, come down off the mountains to carry him away.

Merlin didn’t mean to sit down. He didn’t think about it - in fact, he didn’t even feel himself hit the ground, though some distant part of him registered that it must have been a bruisingly quick descent, given the way his teeth had clacked together. 

The shallow water slopping over the surface of the stone shelf seeped into the thin linen of Merlin's braeis faster than a rag sopped up a spilt beverage. He dragged his foggy gaze up from the shoreline, feeling queasier than he ever had in his life.

The incandescent landscape around him was all wrong. Ground and sky blended together, bone-white and burning.

Merlin stared dazedly across the basin. A figure was standing on the opposite shore, etched out in hard splinters of light, shining as if the sun itself had set atop its crown. In one hand, a flaming spear strained to free itself; in the other rested a flat stone. The apparition was flanked on either side by beasts - to the left, a horse whose hooves set fire to the reeds, and to the right, a hound with glowing embers for eyes, at the touch of whose hide the water of the pool shivered and became wine-dark. The towering figure raised one arm and pointed the massive shivering spear at Merlin, who, despite the distance separating the weapon from himself, felt it as though the point were pressed against his throat. The apparition's gleaming mouth opened, and the breath which issued from it was hotter than a parched field of dry wheat ready to be snapped at the stalk. 

_What answer for the forgers of chains?_

The voice was the deafening crackle of a thatched roof on fire. Merlin wanted to cover his ears, but he could not move, not even to lift his leaden arms.

_What answer for the hunter and hound?_

The great dog raised its head from the surface of the basin, crimson water dripping from its jowls.

_What answer for the innocents slain? What answer for nursling lambs drowned?_

Merlin tried to draw breath. It was like trying to suck air through a reed. 

_What power for Emrys freotgefa?_

Slag dripped from the blazing spear onto the surface of the pool. The water hissed and burst into flames at its touch, igniting as if the basin were a field of dried grass. 

_What answer for the bloody crown?_

The horse tossed its head and stamped sparking hooves, its nostrils smoking. The spear dipped to hover over Merlin’s heart, and the apparition exhaled again, a hot blast from the village ovens, a fell wind out of the dead lands to the east.

_Emrys._

A cold wave broke over Merlin's body. He was underwater.

Or rather, part of him was. 

He shot up, sputtering, from where his head had been unceremoniously dunked beneath the surface of the river, wrenching himself away from a pair of hands that had fastened themselves around his shoulders in a crushing grip. 

“ _Merlin_ \- !”

Through the water streaming past his eyes, Merlin searched wildly for a sign of the fiery apparition, but there was nothing on the other side of the river except rocks and reeds. Nothing to indicate that anyone or anything had been standing there only a moment ago.

Merlin's eyes widened. The river itself, though -

“What is that?” Merlin croaked, spitting out a mouthful of water. A hot wave of dread boiled up from his belly. “What did that?”

Will still had one of his hands clamped painfully around Merlin’s shoulder. Merlin had not seen Will climb up onto the shelf, but he must have done so, and must have dunked Merlin's head, too, thoroughly and without hesitation, though Merlin could not remember it. 

Will’s fingers tightened at Merlin’s question. “You did,” he said, sounding strange. His words were laced through with something Merlin never wanted to hear from him - the one thing Merlin never, ever wanted to see on his face. “Didn’t you know you were doing it?”

The water was on fire. Dancing tongues of flame dotted the surface of the basin like so many scattered lily pads, smoking in the sun, as if an artist had set chunks of tallow alight and sent them sailing out over the water.

Merlin scrambled back from the water’s edge, out of Will’s grip, splashing through the shelf’s shallow puddles. “No, I never did!"

Will’s eyebrows shot up to his sopping hairline. “Steady on - ”

“I didn’t. I didn’t do that!”

“Yes, you did. I just saw - ”

“No, I didn't!”

"Merlin - "

"No!" Merlin bellowed. The pool gave a tremendous lurch, as if a hot spring had belched below the surface, and then the water swelled and flipped over on itself, dousing the flames in one go. The backwash swept over the shelf like swill from an emptied water trough, breaking over Merlin’s already saturated braeis, which clung to his skin like strands of lakeweed. 

The ripples washed themselves out, vanishing as the Ea absorbed them back into its normal currents. A damning hint of smoke lingered, tickling Merlin’s throat. 

Merlin looked away. He could practically feel Will’s gaze drilling a hole in his head, and Merlin could not stand to look him in the eye. He could not stand to look at Will and see the same thing there that Merlin already saw reflected in everyone else’s faces. 

It would kill him.

He stared unseeingly at the puddled, slippery stone under his legs, his ankles digging uncomfortably into the rock. He had scraped one of his knees scrambling back from the water, and a tiny bead of blood bloomed at the edge of the raw, pinkened skin.

“What in the name of Lugh was that about?” Will said. His voice was very tense.

_Afraid._

Merlin shuddered. His insides had turned to water. He could not imagine standing up, and he did not want to try. He was sweating like a sheep before shearing, the shallow ripples lapping at his legs doing nothing to cool him down. He looked down at his shaking hands and saw his bare arms crawling with goosepimples. 

“You’re ill,” Will said, after a long silence. “It was too hot to come all the way up here. We should’ve just gone down to the sheepwash with the rest.”

“I’m not ill,” Merlin rasped. “I’m...”

 _An ill wind_.

_An ill wind as blows no good._

He scrunched his eyes closed, his throat tightening. He wished Will would just get it over with and go.

“I didn’t mean to dunk you,” Will said.

Merlin said nothing. Even with his eyes closed, the sun felt like a rusty awl drilling into his skull.

“You just came over all funny. I didn’t mean to drown you, like.”

Merlin swallowed the words that wanted to claw their way out of him. _Just do it!_ he wanted to shout. _Just go!_

“Are you sure you’re not ill?”

Merlin forced himself to open his eyes. Will was crouched on the shelf in front of him, dripping into a shallow puddle. The hems of his braeis had come undone from their tuck-up into his waistband, dragging slack across the wet stone below his ankles, a little too big for him, like all of his things. Behind him, the sun was starting to sink, impaling itself upon a distant treeline. The slanting rays lit the irregular edges of his hair with a fine filament of gold leaf. 

Merlin steeled himself.

Will, frowning, just stuck his arm out and pressed the back of his hand to Merlin’s forehead. 

Merlin choked on an indecipherable noise. 

He did not know whether he wanted to laugh or cry. Will - Will, who was supposed to have recoiled and been halfway back to Ealdor by now, who was supposed to have fled for the sheepwash - Will did not have a single motherly coddle-bone in his body, and no wonder, given that he had had no one to teach him, but the look of utter consternation on his face as he laid a hand on Merlin’s brow, trying determinedly to work out how hot was too hot, was simultaneously too silly to be taken seriously and too soft to be mocked. 

Merlin’s eyes closed again, his headache receding for one brief, blissful moment. That hand was the first cool thing to have touched his body all day.

“You’ve had too much sun, Merlin,” Will said reproachfully.

“No,” Merlin said. He opened his eyes, though they ached as if he’d been staring at the sun all day. The pool in front of him was as placid as it had been when they’d first arrived. Waterbugs had started to return to its slow-flowing surface, skating from ripple to ripple on spindle-thin legs.

“No,” he said again. “I haven’t.”

Will lowered his hand. “What, then?”

Merlin thought of the figure on the other side of the river, how the light had streamed from its radiant form, how the surface of the water had steamed with impossible fire. He thought of the booming, unnatural voice in his head. 

He did not know how to explain those things to himself, never mind to someone else. 

“There is something wrong with me,” he said softly, instead.

Silence greeted that pronouncement. A breeze too warm and dry to be any comfort rustled a scrubby bush on the opposite shore. 

_An ill wind_.

Will shifted on their stony platform. “No, there isn’t.”

“There is," Merlin said. "I thought I saw - ” He didn’t even know where to begin. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. “I don’t know. Something.” Dark possibilities churned in his mind, as if he weren’t dizzy enough already. “I set a fire and I didn’t know I was doing it. I could’ve been anywhere.”

“Hang on,” Will said immediately. “It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t - raining fireballs, or anything. They just sort of - ” He searched for the right word to describe what, exactly, Merlin’s magic had wrought. “Bloomed,” he settled on, unfolding his fingers. “Out of the water, like lilies.”

“I could’ve killed someone.”

“Don’t be stupid, Merlin! It wasn’t as bad as all that. There was no harm done.” Will attempted a smile. “Anyhow, it’s only me around. I doubt anyone would mind.”

“ _I_ would mind!” Merlin cried. He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, wishing his head would stop pounding. 

An empty breeze soughed through the parched brush behind him. “I’m an ill wind,” Merlin said, bone-weary and trembling, weak in every muscle. He felt as hollow as an empty milk pail.

“What’s that?”

“I’m an ill wind,” Merlin repeated. “ _It’s an ill wind as blows no good_. Aelfric told me.”

Will’s expression twisted immediately into something like disgust. “Aelfric! Aelfric who now? Aelfric who talks more than he reaps, and gleans more than he sows?” Will clucked his tongue testily. “Aelfric could have his head screwed on back to front and still not find his own backside, Merlin! But yeah, by all means, let’s hear more about what Aelfric has to say.”

“It’s not just him that says that.”

“It’s not just him that can’t find his own sit-upon, either,” Will said, scowling. 

Will’s assessment of their neighbors was a little uncharitable, maybe, and not strictly true. But Merlin’s heart warmed at the righteous indignation.

They were quiet for a minute. Then Will stood, sodden braeis dripping onto his feet. “Right,” he said. “You’d better get in, then.”

Merlin gave him a dubious look. Will waved him toward the basin impatiently. “I can’t take you home like that,” he said, gesturing at Merlin’s greasy hair and the lingering wheat chaff now permanently adhered to Merlin's flushed and sweaty skin. “Your mum will have me for supper.”

Merlin stifled a groan, but scooted himself forward. He slid carefully off the edge of the stone shelf into water that came up to his chest. It made him think of the lower Ea, and how just yesterday he and Will had been herding cattle into its shallows. 

Merlin smiled wearily. “It’s my turn to be driven into the river, I see.”

“You and the rest of the collapsing cows,” Will agreed, then slid back into the water himself. “Don’t skell over, though. I’m not carrying you all the way back.”

Merlin had no intention of skelling over, though he thought perhaps that he would have been very happy to lie on his back and float away. His head was still throbbing, and he was still quivering in every muscle, but the river was refreshingly cold, as if a snowcap had broken off somewhere upriver and bumped its way down to the spot where they swam. Merlin wondered that the water did not erupt into steam where it touched his skin.

Will surfaced from a dunk, shaking his dripping hair out of his eyes. “Now look here, Merlin,” he said. “I’ve got to tell you something. It’s right important and I’m only about to say it once, so pay attention.” 

Merlin waited, and Will waded over to him, pausing once they were within easy reach of one another to poke a finger into Merlin’s chest. “Now I’ll tell you this for naught,” Will said, drawing himself up as if about to deliver a pillar of ancient wisdom. “It’s an ill-wind... _as blows out Aelfric’s arse_.”

When Will planted both hands on Merlin’s shoulders, Merlin didn’t fight him. He buckled under strong arms, and plunged under the surface willingly, down, deep down, into blessedly cool waters.


	5. Mabon

For the amount of people the village had managed to cram together under one roof, the motehall wasn’t nearly as warm as Merlin had hoped to find it.

He wrestled the door shut behind him, a blast of wind tugging at its warped and gap-toothed timbers. Ellinor’s father, who had been sitting with a cluster of adults near the entrance, kicked the bottom half more securely into its frame without breaking the flow of his conversation, as if he’d been doing the same thing all night. Merlin banged the top half of the door into place himself, and used his boot to stuff a damp rag across the rotted-out space at the bottom. Maybe now that today had seen the last of the autumn sowing, people’s attentions could finally turn to fixing the things that needed fixing. Everybody had been too busy with plow and harrow to worry about a little draft under the door, lately, but the winter wheat was in the ground now at last, seeds hibernating under a blanket of earth to await next year’s spring. Doors could be mended, now that the most important work was done, and after that, all the village would have to worry about was a glut of unpleasant weather and even more unpleasant reasons to be out in it.

 _Butchering and building,_ Merlin thought, with little enthusiasm. And precious little sun until spring.

He turned and wound his way through the crowded room, stepping carefully over a group of children playing knucklebones on the floor. The boxy iron brazier in the center of the hall blazed with a roaring fire, but its warming effect was diminished somewhat by the drizzly wind leaking in through shrunken shutters. 

“Careful, Merlin!” Peter said, as Merlin tried to scoot past the brazier. “You’ll break up a happy union.”

Peter and the rest of Merlin’s agemates were clustered around one corner of the fire, watching intently to see whether two hazelnuts roasting on the edge of the brazier would cook quietly or pop and leap away from each other.

“Who’s getting married?” Merlin asked. This was an old game.

“No one, yet,” said Peter. “Quinn put one in for Miss Very-Fetching Marian up in Pedders Hope - ”

“For a _laugh_ ,” Quinn protested, to which Ellinor agreed with a snort of “Too right; you’re hardly on her level - ”

“ - but it shot out straight away and hit him in the eye, so I don’t suppose they’ll work out.”

“Oh, bad luck.” Merlin scooped out a handful of cobnuts from the basket on the floor and pocketed them, pointing at one of the nuts on the brazier. “Who’s in now?”

“That one’s for Adeliz. We put it in for her, ’cos she’s still up at Milchmor with the cows.”

“Who’s she in with?”

“Me,” Ellinor smirked. “I’ve told Duncan he’s had his chance. If he doesn’t marry that girl soon, somebody else is going to elbow in, and he’ll just have to take the consequences.”

Merlin glanced over at the oblivious, broad-shouldered Duncan, who was sitting with his family on the other side of the room. Merlin liked Duncan, generally. He was older than the rest of them, though not quite old enough for the adults, and he tended to bounce in and out of their peer group accordingly, but he was steady as a rock, tolerating no nonsense, and he knew how to mind his business, which in Ealdor was an extraordinary thing. He tended toward the more reserved side, for the most part, and did not typically like to buck the yoke, which meant that he and Will butted heads on occasion, but Will, unusually, seemed to respect Duncan all the more for this. “He’s a stubborn bastard and he thinks he’s everyone’s old da, but he knows when to shut it,” Will had commented once, which had made Merlin laugh, because Will himself was a stubborn bastard who did _not_ know when to shut it, ever. But mostly they all got on - Duncan did what needed doing, and did not complain, and he was quiet about courting Adeliz - too quiet, perhaps, for his friends’ satisfaction.

“We’ve drawn up an action plan and we’re all going to take it in turns to fall in love with her,” Peter explained. “That’ll spur him.”

Merlin had to smile. Say what you would about his peers - and he _would_ , undoubtedly, the next time they twisted themselves into pained contortions to avoid being left alone in the bakehouse with him - but they weren’t totally horrible all the time.

Peter prodded the hazelnuts. “We’re doing egg drops next, so we can drag Duncan over here to tell him how horrible his future looks without her. He - oh - ”

The hazelnuts browning in the fire popped warningly, drawing everyone’s attention back to the game. Merlin fished a nut out of his pocket for munching on and slipped away. His agemates were feeling friendly enough tonight, it seemed, but he knew he was not going to be invited to join their game. And it was just as well - of all the things his mother wouldn’t like to catch him messing around with, fortune-telling was probably one of them. Dropping egg whites into a bowl of water to tell someone's future seemed harmless enough, so far as Merlin could tell, but funny things did happen around him sometimes. 

It was better not to court trouble.

He threaded his way through the smoky room, picking past packed benches and double-occupied stools, everyone chatting and eating their fill, cider mugs in hand. It had been a long, cold day of spreading seed and dragging harrows, and it seemed everyone was happy to be finished with work and out of the wind, even if the motehall were not quite as weatherproof as it ought to be.

Merlin clambered over a gap between Margoret’s father and burly Rory, careful not to upset the half-empty cups of cider perched on their knees. Dropping down on the other side of the bench, he asked Will, “What, still working?”

Will was sitting on their usual bench at the very back of the room, tucked into the corner, leaning against the uneven stone wall with his boots propped up on the stool in front of him as he used a little chisel to shave down the sides of a wooden dowel about five inches long. At his feet, a pile of similar rectangular blocks spilled out of a little bag, and a smaller stack of finished cylindrical pegs lay next to him on the bench, their corners smoothed away.

“What, not working still?” Will parroted, turning the question around. “I know it’s nippy out, Merlin, but you can’t just sit by the fire all afternoon and have your little naps, you know.”

Merlin sat himself down on the bench. “I’ll have you know I’ve been out there all day, same as you.” He nudged the bag of rectangular blocks with his foot. “Aren’t you tired? Put that stuff away; it’s after supper.”

Will drew his chisel carefully along the dowel, a feathery curl of wood blooming at the edge of the tool. “ _Don’t stop when you’re tired, stop when you’re done_ ,” he said, then craned his neck to see over the crowd. “Isn’t that right, Matthew?”

Matthew was on the other side of the room, bent over to talk to Audrey and wearing the sort of stupidly lovestruck look that everybody teased him for - he could not possibly have heard Will over the sound of everyone’s conversations and obviously had no idea what he was agreeing with, but he raised a hand in an easy, tolerant sort of acknowledgement before returning to his conversation.

“Old sop,” Will said, shaking his head. He flipped his current peg over to work on the other side. “You lot have finally finished, then?”

“Just now.” Merlin snacked on another hazelnut, supremely content to be off his feet. “How was your section?”

“Not bad. Yours?”

“Clods like rocks. Nigel broke a harrow.”

Will’s chisel stuttered to a stop. The harrows, spiked wood-frame constructions weighed down with stone and dragged through the soil after seeding, would fall to him to fix. “That bugger - ” He chucked a splinter of wood halfway across the room at Nigel’s head, where it stuck in the man's flyaway yellow curls. “Oi! How many rocks did you stack atop that thing? You’re not meant to be digging a well!”

Nigel looked a little chagrined, but smiled sheepishly and spread his hands, into which someone immediately shoved another jug of cider. 

Will huffed and returned to his carving. “I’m going to need about fifty more of these, then.”

“What are you making?"

“Tenons for Gilbert’s wheelbarrow. Except Gilbert was going to _pay me for it_ ,” he added, raising his voice in Nigel’s direction, “which certain other folk here might like to take note of.” 

Merlin smiled to himself. Another group of chilled villagers spilled in through the door, swelling the hall’s occupancy count to almost more than the stocky outbuilding could accommodate. The newcomers dispersed themselves throughout the crowd, rubbing chapped hands together and stripping off hats and hoods. Two of them settled into the empty space at Merlin’s left with a game of dice, squashing Merlin into Will and Will into the corner. Will adjusted his boots, making a face, but Merlin didn’t mind. It was too cold to complain about being squeezed in any way that allowed him to take advantage of somebody else’s warm body.

He watched the smooth, precise planning of the chisel as it pared the block of wood down into a pin that could be driven into a mortise joint, Cuddey's broad back encroaching on his one side and the even rise and fall of Will’s breathing on the other. 

“I thought you’d be at home,” Merlin said.

“Too cold,” Will replied, shaking his head. “Couldn’t hardly get my fingers around anything.”

“You mean to say you didn’t come out just to play cobnuts?”

As if on cue, a shout rang out from the other side of the room “William! Come here and crack an egg! Peter’s just seen stormclouds in his - bad luck, coz - ”

“They’re egg-whites in water, they all look like clouds!” Peter protested, but no one took any notice. 

Ellinor vaulted a hazelnut at them over the heads of the assembly, her headband hanging down around her neck, face reddened from sitting so close to the fire. “You sure you don’t want to have a go?” she called, holding up an egg. “Duncan’s about to have his fortune told.”

Will shook his head. “I don’t need an egg to tell his fortune, Ellinor.”

“Oh aye?”

“Aye so, and I’ll tell him the truth.” He pointed his chisel at Duncan. “You’re going to work this land, die upon it, and be buried under it, all so Nigel’s children can break another harrow dragging it across your bones.”

Everyone in earshot laughed at that, the hapless Nigel not least among them. The amateur diviners wrote both Will and Merlin off as a lost cause and returned to their game, while Will settled back into his narrow niche between Merlin and the wall.

“You’re no fun at all,” Merlin told him.

“You want me to do your fortune, too?”

Merlin had half a mind to say yes, but before he could answer, he was distracted by the faint but unmistakable sound of hooves from outside. Will, his tongue poking out from between his teeth, was focused on his work and did not appear to have heard, but Merlin’s mother, who had been sitting with Audrey nearer the door, paused in her spinning, distaff cradled in one elbow and drop spindle dangling a few inches above the floor. Matthew rose from the seat next to her to have a look out the shuttered window.

Merlin felt a little spike of curiosity.

Matthew leaned back from the window, and Merlin had only a brief moment to register the resigned look on his face before the door to the motehall swung open once again, not to admit another group of shivering villagers this time, but rather a thin man taller even than Merlin, who made a show of ducking to get under the door, though Merlin thought he could have managed it standing upright. 

The newcomer was almost goose-like in appearance, with a long, twisty neck and very white skin, though he was obviously not quite so skilled as a goose at staying dry. His swept-back hair receded from a high forehead despite the youthfulness of his face, and several locks of it were plastered down to his temples by rain. His cloak was a finer make than anything Merlin’s neighbors could have afforded, and it was clean in a way that their own clothes never would be, but the rest of his clothes were not so different from theirs - green tunic, brown trousers, dark mantle draped across his shoulders, and a crushed felt cap atop his head. The only unusual part of his attire was a collection of short, flat wooden sticks hanging from his belt like a ring of keys, each one notched down the side in a jagged pattern.

Conversation faded out around the room bench by cider-soaked bench, the convivial atmosphere evaporating as quickly as if it had been snuffed out by the draft. Will’s perpetual whittling motion stilled, his previously comfortable slump stiffening.

“How much do you owe?” Merlin muttered.

“How much do you?” Will shot back under his breath. “We’re none of us on schedule.”

That was hardly an answer. Behind schedule they all might have been, but Will’s situation was, through no fault of his own, unusual. His father had left him in a difficult position - through no fault of _his_ own, again, but it was what it was - and Will was all-too familiar with the reeve’s collectors, out of which group the goose-necked Denny was unquestionably the most insufferable, though it probably did not help matters that Will had made Denny’s attempts to collect rents, fines, and fees so difficult that Denny loathed the very sight of him.

Merlin watched as Denny and Matthew exchanged tersely cordial greetings. Denny had been one of their own, once, a long time ago, though he had taken his family and left for town years ago and only reappeared months later as one of the reeve’s clerks. Merlin did not think he could possibly be a very favored member of the manorial staff, since he was constantly being sent back and forth to isolated, outlying places like Ealdor, but the relative status conferred on him by his position and the opportunity to lord it over his former neighbors must have been strong enough incentive to keep him toiling zealously for the lord’s benefit, because he continued to show up every quarter-day at exactly the appointed hour, empty tithe cart at the ready.

Denny shook Matthew’s hand, the notched tally sticks clicking together on his belt and drawing a number of silent eyes. Each notch on a particular stick represented some amount of funds or goods owed to the lord. Whenever a debt was incurred, notches would be cut down the side of a clean strip of wood, and then the strip would be split down the middle, creating two identical pieces, a stock and a foil. One was kept by the debtor and one by the collector, allowing both parties to retain a record of their obligations. Merlin’s mother had their own at home, in a cupboard where they would not lose it.

Denny had always tried to tell them that the tally sticks were for their own benefit, since keeping the foil meant that a lord could not arbitrarily add notches to his own half without making the two halves disagree with each other, thus proving a fraudulent charge. Will said that this was cow shyte, and Merlin was inclined to agree with him - the hollow clatter of the sticks knocking together on Denny’s belt was little better than the clinking of chains, for people like them.

Denny pulled his cap off, his limp hair flattened to his skull, then shook the cap over the fire, droplets of water striking the brazier and dissolving in a hiss of steam. “Well!” he said, putting his hands on his hips and surveying the room with a satisfied smile. “Isn’t it nice to see everyone again!”

The silence that greeted this pronouncement was loud enough that Merlin could have heard a tuft of wool drop to the floor. Matthew accepted Denny’s hat from him and hung it up to dry. “Likewise, Denys.” The politeness appeared to cost him something. “It’s been a bit of time, hasn’t it?”

“Three months to the day,” said Denny pleasantly.

Will released a barely audible huff of air, staring at the half-finished tenon in his hands. If Denny knew how to do one thing, it was count.

Unfortunately for all of them, it was a skill he had cultivated exceptionally well.

“Don’t suppose I could trespass on your hospitality this evening?” Denny said, rubbing his hands together over the warmth of the brazier. “I’ve had some trouble with my cart - thought one of your fine people might be able to put it right for me tomorrow.”

Matthew exchanged glances with Audrey, his face arranged in a neutral expression. “I did wonder at seeing you so late,” he said carefully. Denny usually arrived for his quarterly collections first thing in the morning, thundering through the south gate in a burst of pomp before everyone had left for the fields. “What’s the trouble?”

“Oh, coming down Narrow Neck in all this rain - well, you’d know all about it; you can’t trust a path for a penny out there, can you? Hit a bit of a divot, scrambled the front end something awful. Wheel off and all.”

The idea of Denny being bucked out of his wagon was an appealing, if not perhaps productive, line of thought. Behind him, the cluster of fortune-tellers exchanged smirks.

“Well,” Matthew said, “we haven’t got a proper carpenter just now.” Merlin realized suddenly where this was going and looked up pleadingly, but Matthew silenced him with a warning look. “But young William there’s taken up most of his father’s work, and done very well. I’m sure he can help you put it right.”

Merlin felt Will tense next to him. Will looked as if he would rather sup every drop of spilled cider off the dirty floor than help Denny with anything, but he kept his mouth shut, and submitted to Denny’s unimpressed inspection of his person with only a mulish look in Matthew’s direction. 

“Oh,” Denny said, with a faint smile. “That’s right. Sir William. How goes it with you?”

Will’s fingers tightened around his chisel. For a second time, he said nothing, but Merlin couldn’t imagine they would be so lucky on a third occasion. He silently begged Matthew to wrap up this little gathering before any more opportunities for disaster could present themselves.

“Well, I thank you, Matthew,” Denny said, clapping his hands together, his eyes lingering on Will. “I’ll be certain to take advantage of our friend’s, er... _services_ at the first opportunity. And we’ll finish the rest of our business tomorrow, don’t you think?” He fingered the tally sticks at his hips. “No need to be out loading carts in foul weather, wouldn’t you say?”

Behind his back, Quinn and Peter exchanged looks. It was unlikely that Denny cared even the slightest bit about any of his former neighbors getting wet, but the lord of the manor likely wouldn’t be very impressed if Denny lugged back a tithing cart of waterlogged grain and bedraggled, sneezing livestock.

There was a general resumption of noise as the company began to break up, pushing back benches and gathering discarded cloaks and coats. Will swept the finished tenons and remaining dowels into his bag, muttering, “Let’s go,” and leaving without waiting to see if Merlin would come with him. 

Merlin pushed himself up and followed him through the maze of benches and stools. He did not need to see Will’s face to know that his mood had soured into something fouler than the weather outside. 

Denny interrupted their exit by placing a laughably friendly hand on Will’s shoulder, causing a bit of a scrum at the door. Ellinor tapped an impatient foot behind them, a crowd of people at her back waiting to leave and make a dash through the rain for their respective homes.

“I’ll just show you the wagon,” Denny said. It wasn’t a suggestion.

Will stared back at him. “Right.”

The rain had slowed to a drizzle by the time they exited the motehall, everything just misty enough to lend the wind a set of icy teeth. Denny’s porter stood shivering in the muddy lane next to a stocky carthorse, reins clasped in one chapped hand, dripping cap pulled extra low over his ears.

“We’ve had a bit of an accident, you see,” Denny said, gesturing.

The cart was tilted wildly off-kilter, like a seesaw, one rear corner pointing up at the sky and one bare axle at the front end dug into the mud. The villagers exiting the motehall stopped to collect around it, curious enough to postpone their journeys home. Even Ellinor drifted over to have a look, rewrapping her headband against the weather.

Will took in the thrashed cart with a single glance. “Where’s the wheel?” he asked.

“The what now?”

“The wheel,” Will said again. “You know what a wheel is? It’s got spokes and fellies and it goes round in a circle, like.”

Denny stiffened slightly, but the porter cleared his throat. “Popped off, lad. Rolled down the slope somewhere - couldn’t find it in the dark. Sorry about the bother.”

“S'all right,” Will said to him, bending down to grip the front axle. “Not your doing.” He lifted the axle experimentally. The cart settled onto its three remaining wheels when supported, but thudded back down as soon as he let go. “You didn’t lug the front end all the way down here, did you?”

The porter shrugged. “Weren’t but a mile.”

Will shot Denny a look of deepest disgust. Merlin, digging in his pocket for more hazelnuts, offered a handful to the unfortunate porter. “Can we fetch you something to drink, friend?”

“That’s quite all right, Merlin,” Denny said. “There’s no need.”

The porter’s frostbitten face and hoary jowls said otherwise, but the man made no protest. Merlin saw Margoret slip away from the group and duck back into the motehall - if she did not return in a moment with a mug of hot cider in her hands, Merlin would eat his kerchief.

Will gave the cart another bump for good measure, then straightened, turning to face an expectant Denny. 

“Well?” Denny prompted. “How soon can you mend it?”

Will raised his eyebrows. “Mend what? You’ve left the wheel behind. How am I supposed to mend what I haven’t got?”

“Make it anew, then,” Denny said, sighing. “I haven’t got time for nonsense, William. Our lord is expecting me at the manor day after next.”

“Expecting you?” Will said. “Or a cartload of our grain?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said _who would believe all this rain_.” Will’s tone was such that it was very clear that he did not care whether Denny had heard his original statement or not. 

Denny stared at Will. Will stared back. It was hard to say whose face registered more dislike. 

Finally, Denny put his hands on his hips. “Can you do the job or not?”

Will set his jaw. If he had been capable of Merlin's sort of magic, it was likely that something accidental and very unfortunate would have befallen Denny by now. “I can do the job.”

“Good.” Denny made a peremptory gesture to the porter, who sloshed through the mud at the back of the grounded cart and fished out what Merlin assumed were Denny’s personal bags. “Do it without any more backchat, and we’ll get along with our business just fine.”

Will’s eyes narrowed. He flung out an arm, interrupting Denny’s attempt to leave with the overladen porter in tow. “Now hang on just a moment."

Denny halted, tapping lightly on the ring of tally sticks at his belt. Will appeared for a moment to be in the middle of some kind of internal struggle. Finally, after a long, drizzly minute, he said, “How did you want to pay for that?”

Merlin stopped fidgeting with the fasteners on his coat. Matthew looked up sharply from his hushed conversation with Hunith and Aubrey as if he would give anything to have imagined what he’d just heard. The rest of the assembly stopped their own casual mutterings immediately, suddenly very interested in the scene playing out in front of them.

Denny was even more flummoxed than anyone else, if that were possible. “I beg your pardon?”

“How would you like to pay for that?”

“To pay…”

“For the wheel,” Will said. “The wheel that I’m supposed to make for you. The wheel I’m to make with the timber I split, which we already paid woodsilver for the privilege of cutting.”

An extremely pregnant silence ensued. Merlin hardly dared glance at Denny’s thunderstruck face, for fear that Denny might notice his surge of glee. He caught his mother’s eyes instead, and then looked away just as quickly. She did not look happy.

Denny half-smiled. “You jest.”

Will shook his head. “You asked if I could do the job. A job wants paying for.”

“Does it?”

“His lordship pays you to do yours, doesn’t he?” 

The infinitude of contempt that Will managed to stuff into this one seemingly innocuous statement was not, unfortunately, lost on Denny, who shook his head slowly. “He does at that,” he said. “He does at that.” He sighed, fingering the tally sticks on his belt. “Though perhaps not well enough endure these childish games every quarter day.”

Merlin’s peers, all of whom had been intently watching the unfolding drama, traded eyerolls behind Denny’s back. It was impossibly rich of Denny to paint any of them as childish, when he was hardly five years their senior to begin with and younger than Duncan by a twelvemonth. How he had ever wormed his way off his family farm and into a position in the manor’s employ was a mystery to all of them, though Quinn had always suspected blackmail, and Peter, in all his wide-eyed seriousness, had once suggested “sorcery!”

Merlin knew that Peter, at least, was wrong. But Merlin had not been able to offer any better theory of his own.

Denny's breath fogged in front of him as the drizzle beaded on the frizzy tease of his woolen cloak. “I assume these good people would like to get on with their evening,” he said, after a moment’s consideration. “So let’s settle this business, shall we, Sir William?”

Will’s cheeks colored at a second deployment of that nickname. Denny flicked the tally sticks on his belt from one end of the ring to the other - _click, clack._ “You said you’d like to be paid. That’s understandable enough. It’s only fair, isn’t it?” Unhooking the ring of tally sticks from his belt, Denny flipped through them, one craggy strip of wood after the other. “We’ll just take it out of the final reckoning, shall we?”

He stopped on a stock which sported a particularly jagged edge, as if a greedy animal had taken to gnawing on it in between meals. “Run along and fetch your foil and we’ll make an adjustment.”

Will was silent for a moment. “I can’t," he said finally.

“Why not?”

Will met Denny’s gaze straight on. “I burnt it.”

A low murmur rippled through the scattered onlookers. Merlin blinked as a fat droplet of rain struck him on the back of the neck and slithered under his collar.

Denny stared at Will. “You what?”

“I burnt it,” Will repeated. “I burnt it. It’s gone.”

“You can’t - you what?” Denny’s affected upper-class cadence slipped, for a moment, and for a brief instant it sounded like he and Will were having any number of bickering workday squabbles out in the field. “You never did. You can’t _burn_ away your debt.”

“You can’t get ought from naught, either,” Will countered. “You can come riding down here every threemonth until you shrivel up like a Samhain turnip and I still won’t have anything to pay you with. You can’t take what I haven’t got.”

“You - ” Denny’s hands fluttered for his cap as though Will’s words alone were in danger of knocking it from his head. “Ought from naught! I am here for what’s owed, William, nothing more. You’re old enough to know how things are done around here. We all have our duties, though you seem hellbent on preventing me from doing mine - ”

“All right,” Matthew said, stepping in. “Steady on, Denny. You know as well as any of us that there isn’t much to go around.” He gave Will a sidelong glance of warning. “He only means to say that our lives are difficult. He’s not arguing our obligations - ”

“I am, so,” Will butted in, ignoring Matthew’s visibly rising frustration. “How can you listen to this bloke? We already pay fees and fines enough, when we can hardly feed ourselves. He wants woodpenny for timber, and fishsilver for the waters, and pannage to let hogs eat acorns off the ground - ”

Denny shook his head. “That is hardly - ”

Will rounded on him. “Foddercorn every Lammastide when you know we haven’t got enough grain to keep our own stock fed, tallage every year at any rate his lordship chooses, entry fees to inherit a big fat load of nothing - Matthew's not even properly married ‘cos he hasn’t got the coin to pay merchet, has he? And then you’ve got the nerve to come knocking around here, asking for these hands?” Will flashed his own hands at Denny’s face; Merlin was surprised that the fingers weren’t molded into an obscene gesture. “Stuff your cart. You can carry our goods yourself. I’m not helping you steal anything I grew.”

Denny gaped at him as if he had never been spoken to in this way before. He was so rattled that he didn’t even seem to be able to respond to Will directly, but looked instead at Matthew.

“You want to take care,” Denny said, a little white around the lips. “A mouth like that could get someone killed.”

“You _tax_ us for dying,” Will bit out, “so I’m sure you’d come out on top in the end.”

A murmur went through the crowd. Will didn’t need to name that loathsome fee for everyone to know what he was referencing - _heriot_ , the most hated of all customary dues: he deceased person’s best beast to the lord in exchange for the lord’s loss of income. 

Denny opened and closed his mouth like an illicitly-caught fish. “No one is taxed for _dying_ ,” he finally managed. “It’s a duty provided by loyal tenants as compensation for the lord’s loss - ”

“The lord’s loss!” Will cried. “Is my ox still plowing the lord’s field, then?”

“That isn’t _your ox_ \- ”

“You’re right,” Will said, his voice harder than the stone of the valley walls. “It’s my father’s. And I haven’t got anything else of his to give you, so why don’t you stop waving that godsforsaken stick in my face and go find somebody else to mither?”

Denny’s jaw was hanging wide open, but he made a pitiful attempt to draw himself up. “My _responsibility_ is to collect the lord’s due, as laid down by the office of the Crown - ”

“Belt _up_ , Denny!" Will snapped. "You were born on the same plot as the rest of us; stop acting like some kind of noble nit. Does it make you proud, stealing from your neighbors? Do they pay you enough, to sell yourself for a pair of extra capons at Yuletide?”

“William,” Matthew said in an undertone. “Enough.”

Denny had paled completely now, two spots of color remaining high on his cheeks. “It’s better than rolling around in muck,” he replied, his voice tight. “I have made something of myself. I am someone to be _respected_. I am the lord’s eyes on his accounts. I’m his hand on the harvest. I’m his man in the pasture - ”

“We’ve all seen you in the pasture,” Will retorted. “You couldn’t tip a sheep if it had three legs and an eye gone.”

“I - you cannot address me like that!” Denny sputtered, his goose neck more tautened than freshly wound cord. “I am a clerk of the _reeve!_ ”

“You’re a prick,” Will shot back, “and you piss all over everything. What sort of bloke forces a man thirty years his senior to drag a tithing cart all the way down Narrow Neck? Are your parents proud, knowing you’re out picking our pockets for pennies when you could be home plowing your family field?”

The crowd was wide-eyed, gripped with an anticipatory silence. Even Matthew seemed at a loss for how to deescalate the situation now. Denny gripped the tally stick in his fingers so tightly it seemed the wood would snap, and for a moment, it looked as if he would very much like to strike Will, though what good it would do him Merlin couldn’t possibly imagine - Denny was taller, but he was built like a fishing rod with legs, whereas Will spent half his time laboring on the land and the other half taking logs apart chip by chip. Merlin had been wrestled off his feet by him enough times to have very little doubt as to who would come off worse in a fight, if Denny were to try his luck.

It seemed Denny could do the numbers on that confrontation as easily as anyone else in the little circle of onlookers, though. His fists remained clenched at his sides, but he leaned forward, rain dripping down the brim of his cap. “You listen to me,” he hissed. “I am not going to be lectured on _husbandry_ by a hedge-born bastard child who can't stuff his own tongue behind his teeth. You can ask me about my family if it gives you some kind of satisfaction, but at least I can say with confidence that my father is my own, and that his woman has never been paid to lie in another man’s bed. _Your_ father tupped a twopenny hurry-whore at the back of a bordel-house and took the baseborn consequences." He jabbed the tally stick at Will. "He flaunted the Crown’s laws, and he took those consequences, too. You'll meet the same unworthy end, if you can’t learn to pay your dues and keep your misbegotten mouth shut.”

Will, white-faced, opened his mouth in direct defiance of this warning; Merlin trod heavily upon the back of his shoe. Denny leaned even closer, his face twisted in ill-tempered rancor. “So yes, Sir William, to your question, I am sure your father’s fly-bitten beast _is_ still plowing the lord’s demesne. And I am sure it shall continue to do so, until its teeth wear down to nothing and the flesh melts from its withers.” He stared around at the crowd of silent faces, hot breath misting in front of his face in the icy drizzle. “Am I understood? Have I made myself _entirely clear?_ ”

The only reply was rain pattering down onto the broken cart. 

Denny stepped back, snapping the tally sticks together with a wooden note of finality. His fingers were shaking. “The lord takes his due, be it man or beast. The sooner we all learn that, the sooner we can all move forward.” He fastened the ring of tally sticks once again to his belt, fixing Will with a cold glare. “The lord has your ox, Sir William,” he said. “No amount of bullheaded complaining will bring it back to your field. But if it’s any consolation to you, once we’ve done with it, you can come and collect the corpse. I recall you know how to do that much, at least.”

Merlin had less than half a second to register the fist flying past his ear before he made a split-second decision of his own, and _nudged_ Will’s feet out from under him, in the way he wasn’t supposed to, not ever, not in front of all these people, even if it was dark and muddy and all anyone would ever think was that Will had slipped, like anyone would have done in this wet. Will went down like a mule skidding on the frozen Ea, missing his mark completely and slamming down onto his back in a shallow puddle, splattering mud halfway up Merlin’s trousers.

Denny came close enough to falling over himself, lurching back to get out of the way. But he recovered quickly, goggling at the spectacle before him, before passing a hand over his eyes and dissolving into reedy laughter. 

He was the only one. Matthew, looking pained, closed his eyes. Audrey eyed Denny’s laughing fit as if fearing what might come next, and Merlin’s agemates, usually so quick with a joke, were quiet, though Quinn’s eyebrows had disappeared into his hair and Peter’s wide eyes were making his face look even more boyish than usual. Margoret clutched the porter's forgotten mug of cider in her hands, and Ellinor’s darkened face looked as though she could not decide which of the two participants she wanted to thump more. A number of others, Duncan and a few of the adults among them, looked as if they’d been waiting for someone to dump Will on his rear for the past ten minutes, but even they were mercifully silent, waiting for Denny’s paroxysm of laughter to pass.

“Oh, no, no,” Denny said, breathlessly straightening himself. “Don’t get up on my account!”

Will said nothing. He sat there unmoving, covered in mud, without even trying for a retort, as if all the words had been knocked out of him. Doubtless Denny felt this to be the case, and certainly he was rejoicing in his victory accordingly, but Merlin realized with a sinking feeling that Will did not even seem to notice Denny’s parting “let that be a lesson to you” prattle, or to care when Denny turned to go. It wasn’t Denny upon whom Will had fixed his stunned, betrayed stare.

It was Merlin.


	6. Samhain

Merlin could not remember what it was to be dry.

He stood under a canopy of sagging leaves, his shoes squishing under his heels and his trousers stuck to his skin, watching the winter field wash away to nothing. The vast expanse stretched on for acres, ridges and furrows clotted with mud, hundreds of thousands of drowning seeds burbling out hundreds of thousands of tiny death rattles.

It had been pouring for a solid month.

What had started as a drizzle the night of Denny’s visit had intensified and became a steady stream of precipitation, blanketing the valley in chills and ghostly mists. A full month after Denny's departure and the rain had continued to hammer, runoff sluicing down the rocky face of the valley and collecting in moat-like pools along the wall’s base. Houses were leaking, and streets had flooded, but it was the winter field that loomed largest in everyone’s minds, Merlin's included.

He did not register his wet hair or his chilled clothes. He felt like he was watching the end of days. 

A wet crackle of brush in the hedgerow behind him indicated that he was not the only one. 

“Can’t you do anything?” 

Will’s voice was laced with tightly-controlled foreboding. It was the first thing he'd said to Merlin in weeks, the last having been a terse “get hold of the nose, damn it” as they’d tried to restrain one of the village’s beef cattle on the first butchery day of the year. 

Merlin stared at the remnants of the field, where their winter wheat was rotting underground. “It’s rain," he said. "I can’t control the weather.”

Will left him a few moments later, without asking anything more, the waterlogged foliage closing up around his passage. 

Merlin let him go. 

***

Hallmote was a tense affair. Crammed into the small outbuilding, with the door wedged shut against the cold, the villagers stared down the looming prospect of next year.

“If our spring planting yields as well as last year, we’ll scrape by.” Matthew stood at one end of the packed room, next to Audrey. On his other side, a leak dripped steadily into one of four barrels placed strategically around the room.

“Scrape by? If every row of winter wheat rots?” Duncan’s father shook his head. “Matthew.”

“Yes,” Matthew said firmly. “We won’t be able to sell any of our surplus at Pedders Hope; it’ll have to stay here for our own eating, but we’ll manage.”

“It won’t be enough,” Duncan's father asserted. “Not to feed us and the stock through the winter.”

“What we can’t feed, we’ll sell or slaughter,” Ellinor’s father said, folding his arms. “It’ll make for more of a hardship the next year, but better that than not live to see a next year at all.”

Peter’s mother sighed. “It’s not as simple as all that, Frery - ”

“Eat or starve is about simple as it gets - ”

“And what exactly are we supposed to do without the coin - ”

The room broke into nervous crosstalk. Merlin dug his nails into his palms. It was useless for them to keep having these conversations; they had been over this a hundred times and everyone knew as just well as Merlin did how well and truly buggered they were. If the seeds they had planted this winter did not grow into wheat next spring, they would harvest half their usual amount of grain for the winter that followed. Less grain to eat meant no surplus grain to sell at market or feed to their livestock. Slaughtering what livestock they could not feed meant they would not have enough wool, cheese, milk, or pulling power for their plows, and not having sold any surplus grain at the market meant they would not have the money to purchase new animals, or anything else the village needed but could not produce for themselves. It was a self-perpetuating spiral of disintegration, and Merlin had seen it leave other hamlets like theirs stricken, famined, and ultimately abandoned, as the residents fled the premises for gentler pastures.

“It’s not as if we’ve never faced difficult winters before,” Hunith said, her voice as quiet and gentle as always. “We’ll manage.”

Matthew nodded in her direction, clearly grateful for the vote of confidence. “We may have to tighten our belts a bit,” he admitted, “but if the spring harvest is good, we’ll survive.”

“What if the spring harvest isn’t good?” asked a flat voice from the back. 

Merlin turned. Will was bundled up in his usual spot in their corner, some small carving project or another clasped in his hands, his mouth set in a grim line. Merlin, shivering next to his mother, was ashamed suddenly of how badly he wanted to be bundled up in his own usual place, hunkered down on the bench at Will's side. 

Matthew took a while to answer. “Our spring planting has never failed us before,” he said carefully. 

This was not, strictly speaking, a real reply. But no one pressed him on it. The answer to Will’s question was so widely understood that nobody felt the need to hear it articulated aloud.

***

Outside, people did what they could.

Merlin’s spade sank into the soggy earth easily, like he were slicing through a lump of butter instead of a chunk of turf. He levered out a shovelful of slop and tossed it aside, the half-finished drainage ditch at his feet filling up with ooze before he could even go back for a second scoop.

He sighed and let his spade hang loosely at his side. He could not see across the field for the fog, nor feel his toes inside his shoes, nor uncurl his fingers from where they wrapped around the spade’s wooden haft, but he could see his own breath, and feel an ominous crackle of cold pinching his exposed ears. Tomorrow the village would wake to a hard frost, he had no doubt, and whether any of their winter wheat would survive to sprout next year was a question no one would be able to answer until spring arrived and brought with it either a few stalwart, scrawny stalks or a barren expanse of dirt.

The others felt it, too, Margoret with her skirts muddied up to the knees, and Peter, pink around the ears and stuffy-nosed. And Will, of course, who had been assigned to their group but labored at the other end of the half-finished ditch, as far away from Merlin as he could get.

Peter stopped working and leaned heavily upon his spade. He stared at the field, which was more of a swamp these days, slick and swollen with muck, and shook his head gloomily. “Well,” he said, to no one in particular. “If we weren’t well and truly rigwelted before...”

A shovelful of mud splattered onto the dead grass in front of him, splashing his trousers.

“Oi there,” Peter said, with a touch of irritation. “Have a care.”

“Well, you’re just standing around, aren’t you?” Will retorted. He’d given up on his hood an hour ago, and his dark mantle hung sodden and heavy across his shoulders. “What’s the matter with you lot? Don’t tell me you’ve finished already.”

“Come off it, William,” Peter scowled at him. “Have a look round, will you?” He gestured at the waterlogged field, which was too shrouded in mist to see properly. “We’re well and truly buggered, we are.”

Will glared at him, then sank his spade deep into the earth. “Right,” he said acidly. “My mistake. I didn’t realize we’d decided to just roll over and die.”

The rest of them were silent, the only sound the hiss of the rain and the slap of distant shovels. 

To Merlin’s very great surprise, Margoret was the first to pick up her spade again. She returned to work without a word, wrapped in a cocoon of quiet resolve. Peter followed suit a moment later, though it looked like he also wanted to swing his spade around and clap Will a solid blow to the backside. 

Merlin, who had never had any intention of dropping what he was doing, dug his spade into the squelching earth until it was buried up to the haft. He wanted to tell Will that _he_ had not been planning to roll over and die, at least. He wanted to slide into Will’s end of the ditch, and jostle him in between scoops, and tell him _stop being a prick to Peter_ , and take the inevitable shovel-whack to the ankles that would follow, because Will did not like being told what to do by anyone, least of all someone who had absolutely no good reason to be defending their neighbors.

Will did not turn around to look Merlin’s way, though. 

Merlin returned his focus to the ground under his own feet, as the clouds darkened, the fog deepened, the cold sharpened, and the rain continued to fall.

***

Inside, Merlin tried to do what _he_ could.

Tucked away in the back of the motehall, he stared intently at a bundle of wet thatch in his hand.

 _Dry_ , he thought. _Be dry._

The soggy reeds continued to drip sullenly onto the floor. Merlin turned the bundle over in his hands, cradling it down between his knees where no else could see. 

_Dry_ , he urged. _Dry like baked clay._

He had chosen a different seat that night, in the shadows under a wall-mounted shelf laden with stacks of earthenware mugs and jugs. It was close enough to Samhain’s Eve that all such vessels ought to have been in use, slopping over with cider, but no one seemed to have the stomach for celebratory drinking this year.

 _I want you to be dry_ , he thought again. 

The wad of reeds remained as wet as ever, cold and clammy in his hands. 

Merlin watched his mother’s drop spindle twirling on its axis a few inches above the floor, kicked into a constant, familiar spin by a flick of her fingers. She twisted a long string of wool into thread as it whirled, steadily drafting more fibers from the bundle wound round her distaff. She did not have to think about what she was doing - she just did it. She made all of their clothing just like that, and the blankets under which they slept, and the dyed cloth which normally hung drying along the edge of every by-way, colorful banners fluttering in the breeze. The village would need all of that cloth and more in the year to come, something else to sell at Pedders Market besides grain and surplus livestock. Everyone who spun knew this, and even as they chatted with each other, there wasn’t an idle hand in the room.

Merlin turned the thatch over again, top to tail, tail to top, dirt smearing across his palms. He had said he couldn’t control the weather, but why not? Why couldn’t he just make it dry? Why couldn’t he do such a simple, stupid little thing?

_Can’t you do anything?_

Merlin felt a desperate knot of anger tighten inside him, snarled up like the yarn on Ellinor’s clumsily-turned drop spindle. What was the point of a “gift _”_ that didn't do anyone a lick of good? What good was a talent that couldn’t be used, unless it were for tossing pebbles and tripping people into the mud?

He bowed his head and closed his eyes, thumbing through the soggy bundle. _Be dry._

Nothing happened. He retreated deeper into himself, plunging down at a speed that made him dizzy. Down, all the way down, until he splashed into the real center, into a light that was always on. 

_Just be dry_. 

He could feel the thatch there. There was a dim skein of light on inside of it, like the light that was on inside of him. 

He tried to reach for it, but it felt like he was trying to throw an acorn through a waterfall. Every time he stretched a hand out for the thread he wanted, an avalanche of force battered him down into the plunge pool, choking him with water that tasted like rotten wheat and starving neighbors. He managed to snag the thread by a finger despite this, tugging at it. When nothing happened, he yanked it down into the pool with him, pulling it tighter. And then, when still nothing happened, he gathered every churning current of magic he possessed in as furious a fist as he’d ever made and _twisted_ , hard, wringing out the object of his frustration like a wet sheet over the brook.

An earsplitting crack yanked Merlin back to the motehall as the stack of cups above his head burst into a thousand slivers of clay, snapping the shelf beneath them into pieces. Margoret shrieked, and the people nearest his corner jumped out of their seats. Merlin ducked as the remaining jugs and vessels tumbled past his shoulders and shattered on the floor. 

Utter silence reigned for one swollen moment. Then Peter’s father blurted out, “What in the devil’s name - !” 

Merlin’s mother dragged him off his stool, his shoes crunching on the broken pottery underfoot. The mangled shelf hung at a wildly tilted angle - even as they watched, it slipped to dangle from a single peg, then splintered and dropped to the ground with a clatter. 

Merlin would have let every single shard of clay lodge directly in his skull rather than suffer this burning silence, his mother’s fingers locked tightly around his sleeve and every condemnatory eye in the building fixed not on the fallen shelving but, he was absolutely certain, on him. He tried to school his face into an appropriately bewildered look, but he could barely even force himself to breathe, and the silence stretched on and on, until his lungs burned. 

And then - “I can’t have put that up properly.”

Everyone turned to look at Will. He was levered half out of his seat, as if he had been midway through getting to his feet and thought better of it, but his voice was determinedly casual, as if he’d witnessed nothing more concerning than a drink being spilled. He lowered himself back onto his seat slowly, leaning against the wall behind his bench. “Suppose I shouldn't have skipped those anchor pegs after all. Sorry, ma’m,” he added to Hunith, shrugging easily. “Didn’t mean to dump a pot on him.” 

Will was immediately hounded out of his seat to go and fetch a broom. Merlin, so far past the point of desperation as to be ready and willing to grovel, tried to catch his eye, but Will, despite passing within inches of Merlin to reach the door, exited without so much as a glance in Merlin's direction. 

Merlin sat back down next to his mother, slowly, a yawning pit of despair opening at his feet. Under his coat, the wet hunk of thatch dripped down the front of his shirt. Will had not said anything, but he did not need to. His silence was a cold condemnation more damning than any of their neighbors’ suspicious glances.

_Can’t you do anything?_

It seemed that Merlin could not.

***

Merlin crouched alone at the edge of the winter field, an eternal drizzle misted in his hair, frostbitten vegetation crunching under his heels. 

If he had lived in a world where the sun still existed, it would not have been quite dawn. Not a bird whistled in the trees, whose trunks stood rigid and unbowed, as if the sap within had turned to ice. The stony sky overhead emitted its own kind of eerie light, stretching unbroken to the farthest corner of the field, and then beyond, where the land began to rise and break up into forested steppes, the lowest ruffle on the skirt of the White Mountains. 

Merlin laid a hand against the earth between his feet, shards of frosted grass crinkling under his fingers. He closed his eyes and unraveled a string of light from the spindle twirling at his center, threading it down into the dirt, searching for the thousand tiny buds of light that would indicate sleeping seeds. 

He felt like he was trying to find stars from the bottom of a covered well. 

There was nothing there to see, or else he didn’t know how to look properly.

***

The night before Samhain’s Eve saw the first brief appearance of sleet, which hissed and skittered across thatched roofs and collected in glittering piles along windowsills and thresholds. Darkness fell sharp as a headman’s axe and just as deadly cold, forcing livestock into the big barns for the first time that year and neighbors into each other’s houses, everyone stuffing themselves into the smallest cottages they could find and sleeping in heavily blanketed clusters.

Merlin and Hunith opened their doors to Peter’s parents, whose roof had finally succumbed to the constant rotting force of endless rain, and to old Mot Mauthilde, whose unfortunately malodorous feet made her an unwelcome bedfellow to anyone but a woman of Hunith’s boundless compassion. They also took Roger, who apologized six times for imposing and was so tall he had to duck to get under the door, and Charles, who never remembered to patch the holes in his roof but had never once forgotten a snatch of gossip, and - as always - they took Will, whose home was more workshop than house to begin with, and about as easy to keep warm as the barn it had once been. 

Merlin might have enjoyed the company, at any other time. Mot Mauthilde had stinking feet, yes, but also an endless supply of funny anecdotes, and Peter’s parents bickered at dizzyingly entertaining speeds, and Roger had once visited relatives in the Western Isles, traveling through Uther and Odin’s kingdoms to do so - under normal circumstances, he was one of Merlin’s favorite storytellers. Charles was a sillier and slightly less welcome addition, but even he was diverting in his own way - his relentless prattle about village minutiae would normally have been mocked silently by both Will and Merlin, who needed little more than a single raised eyebrow to communicate their mutual amusement.

Tonight, though, Will kept to himself, saying very little beyond his obligatory _thank you_ ’s to Hunith for supper. He stayed tucked into his own corner, splitting thin branches of hazelwood into thatching spars for Peter’s broken roof, and occasionally tossing scraps into the fire. Merlin sat by his mother’s bed at the other end of the cottage, tying hanks of cereal straw into tight bundles of thatch, trying not to get caught staring at Will’s side of the room. 

The rest of the guests, for all their clever stories and lively banter and fascinating travelogues, did not engage Merlin in conversation, and in fact they seemed most relaxed once they realized that he apparently had no intention of attempting to engage them in the same. They talked past him, to each other, content to let him sit a little ways off, in the shadows.

Merlin twisted thin strips of soaked willow ties around his fistful of thatch, listening to Charles go on and on about who had let whose manure pile encroach onto whose croft. A tired misery swirled in the pit of his stomach. 

It wasn’t right. This was his _own house._ It wasn’t fair of them to make him feel like a trespasser in his own house.

He looked instinctively to Will, aching to be seen. But Will, his head down and his hands occupied, was not looking back. 

***

Later, Merlin was woken by something.

He broke the surface of sleep as easily as if he were breaking through a thin layer of ice on the fish pond. He was as cold as all that, too - frozen all down his front, as if someone had banged the cottage door open, or ripped the blanket from his body, or poured water over the covered coals of the fire. 

He opened his eyes. The floor in front of him was confusingly bare. 

He shivered, squinting into the gloom, searching for the neighbors he knew he could not have imagined bedding down beside. He thought he could make out Roger’s tall form, though it had been lying considerably closer earlier that evening. Likewise Peter’s parents, who seemed to have migrated veritable acres away in their sleep. Charles was sprawled against the opposite wall, lying directly where the draft stole in under the door. If he’d tried to roll any farther away, he’d have been outside.

Merlin bit his lip against a swell of bitterness rising in his throat. What was the point of cramming together to keep warm if you were so apprehensive about one member of your party that you couldn’t bring yourself to share the same blankets? Even Will had not been petty enough to sleep somewhere else tonight, for all that he and Merlin had settled under their shared blanket and gone to bed in their usual spot without exchanging a word.

Merlin swallowed and rolled over, away from the frozen void to his right - away from Peter’s parents, who waited until Merlin was asleep to scoot their pallets out of his reach, and from Roger, who had so many interesting things to say and yet so very little of good to say to Merlin himself, and from Charles, too, who would rather freeze his fingers off under the door than fall asleep under the blankets Merlin had given him. 

When Merlin met the broad sweep of Will’s back, he stopped there, his forehead fetched up between Will’s sleeping shoulders. He shut his eyes tightly and took a shallow breath. The sleeting rain pattered sibilantly against shutters stuffed up with cloth. 

The rest of his neighbors could freeze, if that’s what they wanted. Merlin could sleep like this. Will’s back was warm like nowhere else was warm on this hell-night, and Will himself...well. Merlin was too tired to worry about waking him up, or perhaps he was too lonely to pretend anymore that he did not want to.

“Gods almighty,” came a muffled whisper. “Would you put some stockings on?”

The voice was nearly inaudible, so much so that Merlin would have thought he were dreaming it, had he been the slightest bit sleepier. He cracked his eyes open, but did not move. “I have stockings on.” 

“Shoes, then,” Will hissed. “For the love of Lugh.”

Merlin’s shoes were soaking wet and drying by the fire. He would sooner swallow both boots whole than poke one single toe out from under these covers, but Will's suggestion had not been a real one, in any case. It wasn't shoes they needed - Merlin hooked his fingers into a corner of the blanket and dragged the coarse felt over both of their heads, blotting out the chill creeping in under the door and what little light remained of the fire’s cooling embers. 

Will said nothing in response, but he made no move to undo Merlin’s work, either.

Merlin let his eyes drift shut. The ground under his side was hard and cold, but it would not be so for long, not with the two of them nestled down together like seeds under the earth. Will’s back radiated heat like a stone left sitting in the sun, and Merlin settled against it without prompting any further protests about socks, planting his forehead more firmly at the back of Will’s neck, his brain and body sleep-fuzzed and stuporous, sensation trickling slowly back to tingling fingers. 

He was not sure if they were still having a row or not. He did not think it mattered, at this exact moment.

***

When Merlin woke the next morning, he was very hot. His hair was matted down to his forehead and his clothes were clinging to his skin, as if he had sweated out a stubborn fever overnight. He was lax-muscled, and languid, as if he could have easily slept for another couple of hours, left to his own devices.

He was also very alone.

He rolled out from under the blankets and sat up, blinking. It was still well before dawn. On the other side of the cott, his remaining guests were preparing to leave for their morning rounds, rolling up their blankets and exchanging murmured _good mornings_ in sleepy tones. On Merlin’s side of the house, only a few scattered hazelwood chips on the floor indicated that anyone other than himself had ever been there.

His mother frowned at him, folding a spare blanket over her arm. “What’s the matter, love? Did you not sleep all right?”

Merlin looked around the house again, knowing that he would not find anyone.

He busied himself with rolling up his own pallet, turning away from her. “No,” he said, and swallowed his hollow, hopeless disappointment. “I slept fine.”

***

Samhain’s Eve saw an end to the sleet, but a renewal of the more violent rains which had characterized the first part of the month. The motehall's shutters rattled incessantly, and a fifth barrel was brought in to catch a new leak at the back of the room. If the weather ever improved, they would re-thatch the roof, but Merlin was starting to think this would never happen.

The motehall was crowded, but subdued. Samhain’s Eve normally rivaled Beltane for pure festive anarchy, but the weather was too wretched for bonfires or outdoor games, and even the simpler indoor substitutes had found few willing participants. Nobody wanted to go bobbing for apples when they had already spent the last month dripping wet, and fortune-telling had also lost its appeal, given that the village’s future looked about as dark and foreboding as the skies outside. But if Samhain were meant to be a time when the veil between this world and the next was at its thinnest, then Merlin felt that Ealdor had at least gotten the spirit of the holiday right, if nothing else. He could practically _feel_ the spectre of Death hovering over their heads, waiting for the arrival of next year’s barren harvest.

The endless storm spat a fine smattering of rain through a gap in the shutters, and Merlin pulled his coat tighter against the back of his neck. He was sitting on the very worst stool in the motehall, the one under a window that Matthew had asked to have repaired at every single Hallmote for the past ten months running, which Will had cheerfully refused to mend for those same ten months, because “avoiding the shyte seat is the only reason anyone gets to these things on time, anyhow.” 

Merlin scrunched down into his jacket, a biting wind knifing through the crooked planks of wood behind his ears. He had not been especially late, but it did not matter what time he had slunk in through the door. His usual bench in the corner had been dragged away to another spot because neither he nor Will had been sitting on it, and Merlin knew better than to try to insert himself into a cluster of neighbors without being invited. 

It had been stupid of him to even come here without his mother. He ought to have stayed at home.

 _“Frost must freeze, fire burn up wood.”_ Adeliz’s winter lullabye was quiet but clear, even through the customary clamor of voices. She bounced her younger sister on her knee, surrounded by the circle of her family, her golden-brown skin flickering in the firelight and her loose curls pulled back, out of reach of little hands.

 _“Frost must freeze, fire burn up wood,  
_ _Ice form bridges, water wear a covering,  
_ _Wondrously locking up shoots in the earth.  
_ _Winter must turn, good weather come again,  
_ _Summer bright and hot.”_

Merlin stuffed his cold hands under his armpits as Adeliz switched her sister to her other knee and circled back to the beginning of the song. Her lullabye seemed awfully optimistic, given their situation. And Merlin had never liked that particular ditty much, even when he had been young enough to appreciate lullabyes in general. It did not rhyme, and there was something fundamentally unsatisfying about that fact, something which made it feel less like a song and more like being talked at.

Merlin chanced a glance at the other side of the room, where his peers had gathered in their customary place around one corner of the brazier. They were hardly as animated as they usually were, given the existential dread floating over the entire assembly, and Merlin could not hear what they were saying over the crowd’s chatter, but Peter appeared to be valiantly doing his best to convince Margoret and Quinn to play a positively deadly variation of snapdragon, and Ellinor was watching them like she had been waiting all day for something this foolish to happen, and Will, who had traded in his usual bench in the back for a seat with this group, was sitting by serious-faced Duncan, pointedly ignoring the disaster-to-be that was Peter’s snapdragon game and talking with Duncan about who knew what. Field drainage, or timber varieties. Something dull and pointless and stupid.

Merlin looked away, staring with furious intensity at the dirt floor under his feet. His chest burned in some horrible, undefined way. It was all right for Will. Will could sit with anyone, anytime he wanted. He didn’t attract funny looks just for walking into a room. He couldn't smash things just by thinking about it. He might not have been anyone’s favorite person, maybe - but he didn’t need his mother around to make sure someone would feel obligated to share their bench with him -

 _He hasn’t **got** any mother around to make sure someone will share their bench with him_, a better part of Merlin protested. _He hasn’t got anyone -_

Merlin bowed his head forward until it was nearly resting between his knees. He did not want to think about that just now. 

A commotion arose on the other side of the room. Peter’s snapdragon bowl had gone up in a heap of smoke, and whatever burnt berries he had been using to play filled the hall with a stomach-turning odor, as well as a chorus of tired complaints. Merlin shut his eyes and breathed in through his mouth, a dull ache setting up behind his eyes. The howling wind drowned out the sound of his neighbors clamoring for Peter to chuck that mess outside - or maybe that was just Merlin's blood rushing in his ears, the sound of which was suddenly, strangely, strikingly loud. Roaring, in fact.

He was feeling sort of ill now. Spectacularly queasy.

The crooked shutters jiggled in their frames behind him, a rain-soaked draft whipping the back of his neck. He thought maybe he ought to change seats, but he felt sluggishly confused and was not sure he wanted to get up.

His stomach churned. Maybe he had eaten something ketty. 

He tucked his crossed arms over his belly and wrapped his fingers around his elbows, clamping down against a shiver that threatened to chip his teeth. It was much too cold in here. 

A shudder gripped him, prompting his toes to curl up inside his shoes. It was much, _much_ too cold in here, actually. 

Merlin cracked his eyes open, squinting at the floor. It was dark. Impossibly dark. Why had no one put more wood on the fire? It was getting too dark in here to see.

That didn’t make sense. 

He opened his eyes all the way, dragging his gaze up from the floor. The motehall was shrouded in shadows, as if the last cup of cider had been spilt and the last lyric hummed and the last of his neighbors ushered out with a swish of skirts and a soft _snick_ of the door. A few smoking embers burned in the brazier, a clutch of red-hot eggs smoldering in their iron nest.

On the opposite side of the fire sat a woman Merlin did not recognize. The thick folds of her cloak fell across her shoulders like tatty slices of the night sky, the cavernous hollow of her hood gaping like the mouth of the Warren when there was no torch to be had, or the bottom of the well-pit on a night with no moon. The face it framed was a white fish floating dead in the Ea, her ropy hair the foggy grey of wool before washing. The flesh around her eyes bloomed a bruised, woundwort purple, creased into sad, dragging circles, as if this woman had never slept a night in her life.

She rolled a wooden staff slowly in her lap, as though she were winding thread around an oversized spindle. At first glance, the cracked cap of the staff looked as though it had been carved into the shape of a raven in flight, wings extended, but as the stave turned, it became the antlers of a stag, a thorny crown thistly and proud. Merlin watched the gnarled wood spin, unable to look away from the slow progression. Raven to stag. Feather to bone.

“ _Forst sceal freosan_ ,” the woman intoned, in a voice older than stone and deeper than the sea. 

Merlin stared at her, his limbs heavy and cold.

“ _Forst sceal freosan_ ,” she repeated, “ _fyr wudu aþecgan_. _Is brycgian; wæter helm wegan._ ”

A distant music reached Merlin’s ears. His neighbors had gone, but the keyless tune lingered like a wool-waulking chant drifting across the green, filtering in through cracks in the shutters. The apparition repeated herself, and her words slotted into the familiar melody like carefully carved tenons into a mortise joint.

 _“Forst sceal freosan  
_ _Fyr wudu aþecgan_  
 _Is brycgian  
_ _Wæter helm wegan.”_

Merlin recognized Adeliz’s aimless song with a start. _Forst sceal freosan._ Frost must freeze. 

It _did_ rhyme, then. In some other tongue.

The wind outside howled, bashing the shutter panels against each other. A splatter of rain slithered down Merlin's neck. 

_“Eorðan ciðas, wundrum lucan. Winter sceal geweorpan, weder eft cuman.”_

He understood the woman's words as clearly as if she were speaking his own tongue. _Winter must turn, good weather come again._

But she was wrong, he thought desperately, his stomach curdling. He was frozen here and he was never going to thaw out. He was frozen here, and the winter field was flooded, and Will was not speaking to him, and it was going to rain like this until they all drowned. 

She stared at him dispassionately, as if she knew he had just called her a liar. 

She did not look surprised. She looked as if she already knew everything there was to know about him, his beginning and his end, the sum total of his entire existence, every thought that had ever crossed his mind, and everywhere he’d ever been or dreamed of being and everything he’d ever said or done or thought about saying or doing to everyone he’d ever known. She knew him without knowing him - every unkind opinion he'd ever harbored about an ungenerous neighbor, and every question he’d ever swallowed, every _who_ and _how_ and _why_ he'd stopped himself from asking his mother. She knew what he’d told Will, when he’d told Will, and she knew what had passed between them on the night of the ox, though those were confidences that Merlin protected more carefully than his magic. And the magic, of course, she knew about also.

It was as if she had just popped in to have a look at him, despite knowing everything about him, and had still somehow found herself disappointed. Or perhaps it was just that she looked so unspeakably sad.

“ _An sceal onbindan forstes fettera, felamihtig Freotgefa_.”

Merlin shivered. _Freedom-giver._ He had heard that once before.

“One alone shall unbind the frost’s fetters,” she repeated, and he should not have been able to understand her, but he did. 

She turned the splintered staff meditatively on her knees, raven to stag, feather to bone. “ _Emrys_.”

The embers in the brazier sputtered and died, plunging the room into darkness. Only the apparition was illuminated, bathed in a silvery glow most approximate to moonlight rippling on the river, though every window was shuttered and the moon had been clouded over for weeks. 

“ _Emrys._ ”

She stretched one white hand in his direction. Merlin blinked back a wave of dizziness, a bonechill that stiffened his joints and turned his roiling stomach into a well-pail sloshing over with chunks of ice.

“ _Emrys.”_

Cold fingers fastened themselves around his wrist. 

Next thing Merlin knew, he was yanked out of his seat, a booming like thunder filling his ears. 

He gasped, and inhaled a mouthful of water for his trouble. 

It _was_ thunder. He was not in the motehall anymore, but outside of it, being battered about the head by biting winds and stinging drops of rain. And it was no ghostly apparition whose fingers were locked around his wrist, either, but rather a very real, very solid, very soaking wet Will, who was dragging Merlin insistently around the corner of the building.

Will had yanked him halfway down the narrow footpath between the motehall and Stefan’s goat byre before a disoriented Merlin could even think to resist. “Hang on - ” Merlin tore his wrist out of Will’s grip. “Stop! What’s - what are you doing?”

Will had not put bothered to his hood up, and already he looked as if he'd dunked his head in Hely’s water trough. “What am _I_ doing? What are _you_ doing?” 

Merlin was still dazed, his ears ringing with words he should not have been able to understand. “Nothing. I didn’t do anything.”

“What do you mean, you didn't do anything? You just came over all white in your chair; you looked like you were about to skell over!”

“No, I didn’t. I never - ”

“Yes, you did! I was _right there_!” 

Merlin wished Will would stop hollering. He was so blasted loud.

“Everard thinks you’ve been at the cider - ”

“Everard can think what he likes.” Merlin squeezed his eyes shut in a desperate attempt to quell the pounding in head. What gave Will the right to holler at him, anyhow? If he wasn’t going to talk to Merlin, then he wasn’t allowed to holler at him, either. He should leave Merlin be, and mind his own business; keep his nose on his own side of the room and let Merlin handle these... _whatever_ these were, on his own -

“Everard can think what he likes until he starts thinking maybe it’s a bit odd you’ve scuttled two shelves in two weeks - ”

“I never scuttled another shelf - ”

“Only because I dragged you out of there! Every tool on the wall was shivering. They all think it’s fair _windy_ tonight - ”

Who was Will to harangue him about this now? Weeks upon weeks of nothing, and now this? “It _is_ windy,” Merlin said. "And I don’t fancy standing around in it, so if you’ve finished dragging me out into the second flooding of Larceny Lake - ”

“I haven’t!” Will snapped. “What in the name of Lugh was all that about?”

The wind cut through the narrow snicket, lashing them both with rain. “Nothing.”

“What sort of impossible lie, Merlin - ”

“Nothing you’d _understand!_ ” Merlin's head was swimming. _Felamihtig, freotgefa_ \- he didn't understand it himself. “I already know there’s something wrong with me. I don’t need you to tell me again.”

“Don’t you go putting rubbish in my mouth, Merlin,” Will said. “I never said that.”

“No. You didn’t.” Merlin’s dizziness was leaking down into his belly, setting his stomach whirling like an overwound drop spindle. “You’d rather keep yourself to yourself all month, and not a word to anybody - ”

Will narrowed his eyes. “We’re talking about you just now.”

“What do you care?” Merlin had been freezing cold a moment ago, but his head felt like it was on fire now. “Why do you care what I do?”

“Merlin, if you pull another stunt like that, people are going to start wondering about you!”

Merlin’s skull felt like it was being riven in two. “They already wonder about me.”

“Then what the hell are you playing at? I don’t care if that lot has got acorns for brains - you’re going to end up skinned in the back of a wagon, if you’re not more careful!”

“If _I’m_ not more careful?” Merlin wished someone _would_ come along and skin him, just then. His flesh was burning as if the entirety of the untouchable pool inside him had come to a boil. “Are you listening to yourself? Not a month gone you were stood out here telling everyone and their mother how you tossed away that tally stick - ”

“We're not talking about me, Merlin - ”

“ - burnt it up like it was a chip of scrap wood - ”

“And that's what it ought to be - ”

“But it isn’t!” Merlin was hollering himself, now. “And you know it isn’t; how are you supposed to prove the sum when you’ve got nothing to show on quarter days? They can add nocks and nicks and whatever they like to their bit now, and here’s you not able to answer - ”

“What does it _matter_ , Merlin?” Will cried. “I can’t pay any of it anyway!” The steep angle of the byre’s roof was dumping rivers of rain down the back of his mantle, but he didn’t seem to notice. “What did you think was going to happen, if we played nice with those folk? You and everyone else, I can’t understand it - do you honestly think that if we just mind our manners and hand over our hay and our hens and our wool and our wheat that one day the lord in the manor is going to lean back from feasting on our food and say _do you know what, I think that’s enough; I’ve taken as much as I need_? That the thrice-damned king at Carr Naeddran is going to leave us in peace because you smiled pretty for Denny? Is that what you think?”

“No,” Merlin said, through clenched teeth. “I think _you’re_ going to end up skinned in the back of someone’s wagon, if you don’t learn when to shut it. I don’t care what Denny says to you; you can’t go at it hammer and tongs with the reeve’s collectors.”

Will’s face twisted into a bitter mask. “Not much chance of that with you around, is there?”

Merlin faltered. “I - you tripped.”

“Over your invisible hands! Don’t tell me that wasn’t anything to do with you; save it for your mother!”

Merlin felt a renewed stirring of anger. “All right, and what if I did? Would it have been better if I’d let you thump him?”

“He deserves a good thumping, Merlin!”

“That doesn’t mean you have to be the one to give it to him! Everyone knows Denny’s an idiot. He’s still the reeve’s man, you can’t just clock him about the face - ”

“I could have done, if _someone_ had left well enough alone - ”

“It’s not just about you, though! He’s going to make everyone’s life more difficult now. Matthew had to put him up all night; and do you think Denny stopped whinging about you for even one second while he ate Matthew’s food and drank Audrey’s brewing and mussed their bed? And next quarter day, who’s to say he won’t ask for more from us next time, now he’s narked off at you? Tallage for his trouble - ”

Will’s fists were clenched, his sodden sleeves hanging past the tips of his knuckles. “Spare me, Merlin; I’ve had this bit from Matthew already.”

“Then stop acting like you want the lord’s men to clap you in irons every time they come round here.”

“I don’t want to be clapped in anything; I want to be paid for my work! And if Denny won’t part with a couple of pence for a wheel that took me the better part of a day to make, then he can part with a couple of his teeth instead, and I don’t give a tinker’s cuss if he runs crying to the lord about it, either.”

“And if the lord sends the bailiff running back?” Merlin could hardly suppress a strangled cry of frustration. “Then what? They’re going to drag you up in front of the manor court like your father - ”

“Don’t,” Will said immediately. The air around them crackled, the temperature between them plunging. “Don’t you have a go at my father, Merlin; as if I need telling - ”

“I’m not having a go at him, I’m trying to stop you making a mistake - ”

“That isn’t _up to you_!” Will yelled. “Just because you can - wave your fingers and make it so people haven’t got - haven’t got _choices_ , Merlin, when we’ve got precious little else to call our own - you can’t just stick your nose into every little thing people do just because you don’t like it!”

An uncomfortable chill dug its fingers into Merlin's stomach. “No, that’s - that is not what I do.”

“Oh aye?! What were you playing at, then?”

“I - I didn’t want you to lose your head!”

“It’s my head to lose, isn’t it?” 

“I suppose it must be,” Merlin retorted, pulling himself together, “though I can’t understand how you’ve kept it this long.”

“Likewise!"

They glared at each other in boiling silence. The lane at the end of the snicket was completely obscured by a driving sheet of rain.

“I’m not going to apologize for stopping you doing something stupid,” Merlin said.

Will jerked a thumb in the direction of the motehall. “Neither am I.”

“Fine.”

Will flicked his mantle inside out, dumping all the accumulated water down the side of the byre, then yanked the hood over his head. “I’m going home.”

Merlin had no hood to flick. He dug his fingers into his palms. “Fine.”

“And don’t let me see you come running back with any of your _'and another thing'_ s, either!”

Merlin wished fervently that they had been having this argument indoors, so he would have a door to slam. As it was, he stormed off in the opposite direction as Will, without bothering to dodge any of the roof spillage. His clothes were already dragging on him like sacks of wet grain. He’d be going barefoot all day tomorrow, waiting for his shoes to dry out. 

He stalked down a street that was more river than road, past houses where other folk had wisely taken shelter already, his soggy socks bunching up in the heels of his shoes. To his right, the motehall squatted solid and unperturbed by the weather, the gaps around its shuttered windows lined with inviting threads of gold. Merlin scowled at it as if the building had spat him out into the storm of its own volition, hunching his shoulders up against the icy rain dribbling down his collar.

So what if he had used magic to stop a fight, he thought furiously, sloshing his way across the lane. Walloping Denny in the face was about as daft as you could get without actually storming up Narrow Neck and striking the lord himself - it wasn’t as if Merlin had been the only one to think it was a bad idea; everyone could see it was a stupid, foolheaded thing to do. What did it matter, if Will had ended up looking like even more of a fool than Denny; at least he wasn't on his way up to the manor with his wrists bound. 

Merlin veered off from the central lane and followed a footpath leading past a number of his neighbors’ little cottages, the plants in their well-tended crofts browning and drowning in the rain. His shoes squelched underneath him, leaving puddled imprints in the dead grass. Will had _no idea_ , he thought angrily, kicking a stone out of the way and scattering a clump of geese up onto the turf. None at all. Will had never seen any of the things Merlin saw, or heard funny voices that left him with horrible headaches, or broken things just by thinking about it - or by not thinking about it, even! Who was Will to tell Merlin to _be careful?_ As if Merlin didn’t already know! Didn’t Will understand that if Merlin knew how to stop all of this happening, he would have done it already? It wasn’t up to him. He hadn’t meant to snap that shelf off the wall, and if he really thought about it, he hadn’t meant to knock Will down like that, either, but what did it matter, in the end? What did it matter if Merlin had intervened? What did it matter if it had been magic? He’d stopped Will doing something he would regret later, that was all.

Merlin abandoned the footpath and cut across the swampy turf toward his own plot, his face scrunched up against the rain. A part of him whispered that he wasn’t sure Will _would_ have regretted it, to be honest, and it hadn’t been Denny who’d made Will look a fool; that bit had been Merlin’s doing -

Merlin slapped angrily at the unpleasant feeling nibbling on his stomach, which did just about as much good as him trying to slap a twenty-stone hog away from its feeding trough. His own door sprang up in front of him before he realized how close he had gotten to home, the rain hammering the door's weatherworn planks and spilling down the warped grain, collecting in a rut lining the threshold. There would be a fire inside, and after-supper leftovers in the kettle, and blessedly dry clothes to change into. And his mother, of course, warmer and more comforting than all of those things combined.

He hovered outside the door, his fingers brushing the slick iron latch. 

Then he uttered a grumbled imprecation, turned around, and headed back the way he’d come.

***

When he stopped in front of Will’s cott, he was as drenched as a drowned cat and just as screechingly ill-tempered, and he wasn’t really sure whether he intended to knock politely or just bang the whole door down with a loud and expressly forbidden “and another thing - !” 

The decision was taken completely out of his hands, however, when the door swung open before Merlin could put knuckles to board.

Will, halfway over the threshold, stopped short when he saw Merlin. “What in the ruddy hell are you doing?”

Merlin gave Will a suspicious look. “What are _you_ doing?”

Will took in Merlin’s bedraggled appearance with narrowed eyes. The hiss of the rain cast a muffled hush of white noise over the street. Merlin could not hear the swollen creek tumbling over its smooth stones, or Gilbert’s milk cow lowing in her byre, or a single chunter out of the worm-hunting chickens puttering around the yard. 

Will had not released his grip on the door. He had not changed out of his muddy things, either, and his hood was back up, and Merlin was seized suddenly by a wholly unsubstantiated yet absolutely unshakeable certainty that he needn’t have bothered walking back to Will’s house at all. He could have sat down at his own trestle table, pulled off his boots, and then gotten up to answer a knock at his own door before he even had time to change into anything dry.

He couldn’t think of a word for how that made him feel.

Maybe in the language his apparitions used. _Winter sceal geweorpan, weder eft cuman._

Winter must turn.

“Can I...” he gestured.

Will stood back. “Get in.”

Merlin did. Will pulled his hood off and shut the door behind him, blocking out everything but the sound of the rain smattering onto the thatch overhead.

Will’s house was dark. The firepit in the middle of the floor had not been lit, and only a dull, gloamy light filtered into the room though a high window slit tucked under the meeting of the eaves. Tall planks of green timber leaned against the wall to the right of the door, split and hewn on fairweather days and piled inside to keep dry. A grindstone and a shavehorse occupied the working half of the room, along with a stout, heavy table. Fabric squares too rough to have been carted off to market hung from the home’s central crossbeam and sectioned off a small sleeping space, while half-finished barrels and buckets clumped together to the left of the door, where a collection of other people’s tools were stacked, awaiting repairs. Nigel’s harrow was propped against the wall, a number of its tines missing and one of its crossbeams cracked down the middle.

Merlin nodded at it. “You’ve not mended that yet?”

“Won’t need it ’til spring,” Will said, shrugging and turning away.

Merlin was silent for a while, watching as Will sorted through the pile of planks leaning against the wall. “More thatching spars?”

Will nodded, emerging with a bundle of slender hazelwood limbs. He tugged one branch out from the bunch and gestured at Merlin. “Are you going to get out of that wet stuff or what?”

Merlin glanced at the soggy puddle of sawdust spreading around his feet. “If you’ve got anything to lend me.”

Will disappeared momentarily behind a thin drape of cloth, reemerging with a second shirt in hand. He tossed it to Merlin, not quite meeting Merlin’s eyes. “Go on. It fits you better anyhow.”

Merlin peeled off his own jacket, then dragged his wet shirt over his head and shrugged into Will’s extras. They were the right height for Merlin, certainly, but the shirt had obviously been sewn for someone sturdier and less gangly, for an adult with stronger arms, broader shoulders. Merlin thought the shirt would fit Will just fine, in that way, even if Will would always say it was too big for him.

Will sat down on the floor, his back pressed up against one of the grindstone’s heavy legs. He settled the hazel spar across his knees. Merlin draped his own dripping things over the table and crouched next to the firepit, fishing a bit of flint out of his belt. He fiddled with it for a couple of unsuccessful attempts, producing half-hearted sparks that expired before they reached the nest of dry timber below.

Readjusting the striker in his hand, he resisted the urge to make a face.

“Will you stop faffing about with that thing and just light it already?” 

Merlin looked at Will, but Will’s face revealed nothing particularly telling. Merlin hesitated; then, seeing nothing in Will’s expression to indicate that he shouldn’t, Merlin pocketed the flint and passed a hand over the knot of tinder, reaching for it in an altogether different way. 

The tinder was glacially cold, and not remotely dry, and the curled-up knot of leaves and grass at its center didn’t want to do what Merlin was asking, at all. It was nearly winter, and frozen plants were meant to be sleeping. Trying to drag them up into combustion felt like rolling a millstone uphill.

He closed his eyes and let his mind wander a little farther afield, searching. 

There he was, wearing Will's shirt and his own soggy trousers, his hands stiff and his skin clammy. There was the light on deep inside him, hidden down where it always was, inextinguishable even as he stowed it further and further away. It rippled as he brushed past it, like a sleeping dog twitching its ears up at a familiar human's passage.

There was the rain on the roof, searching for dry earth to water, for plants to feed. There was the ring of stones around the firepit, rocks settled heavy and cold in a protective circle. There was the branch of timber lying across Will’s knees, half-alive and growing still, swelling in the damp. There was Will in his muddy tunic, glowering, just like always, like any burning ember should. And there under Will’s muddy tunic was another light, a spark that refused to be smothered, stifled, or snuffed, one that could be dunked in any amount of mud any amount of times and still roar to life, tossing knuckles at the local nit’s teeth.

A puff of flame billowed up under Merlin’s palm, swallowing the tinder and sinking its greedy teeth into thicker chunks of kindling. Merlin rocked back on his heels, satisfied, letting the warmth break over him.

He looked at Will, who was watching him in silence. 

The unpleasant feeling that had been nibbling at Merlin a little earlier bit down harder. He trained his eyes back on the fire, which had blossomed into a cheerily crackling blaze. In one corner of the room, a mail shirt tucked against the wall caught the light just so, scattering tiny rings of gold across the ceiling.

“Listen,” Merlin began, at exactly the same time that Will said, “Right - ”

They both shut their mouths and regarded each other warily.

Merlin took in a deep draught of warm, smoky air. “Right,” he said, beginning again. “All right. You’re right. I did stick my nose in. And - it was sort of an accident, but I shouldn't have done it.” 

He looked sideways at Will, unsure of whether he really wanted to see Will looking back.

Will pulled the hazel spar back up onto his knees, fiddling with it. 

“I didn’t mean to dump you on your back like that,” Merlin said. “I’m sorry.”

Will stared intently at the branch on his knees. “Forget it," he muttered. "You were right, anyhow. It was a stupid thing to do.”

Merlin prodded absently at the fire. He had been so certain about that, at the time, but now...he thought ahead to next quarter day, when Denny or another of the manor’s men would ride away with a wagonload full of their labor, carting their hard work off to a tithing barn that had never been low on stores and a household that had never known hunger. 

“I don’t know,” Merlin said. He watched as Will fiddled with the uncut spar in his hands, turning it over and over, a knot on the otherwise smooth bark revolving around its axis. “Maybe. Maybe not. If anyone ever deserved a solid braying...”

Will nodded, his eyes seemingly permanently averted. 

Merlin picked up a stray stalk of straw and fed it to the fire, watching as the far end flared and was swallowed, the flame eating its way up the stem like a candle consuming its own wick. “I'm just saying, if you did want to stick one on him some other time, I wouldn’t begrudge it to you.”

"Merlin, you wouldn’t begrudge a fox his choice of chickens.”

That was not even remotely true. But it warmed the pit of Merlin’s belly regardless.

Rain hammered down on the thatch above their heads, a wet, snappy crackling filling the little cott. 

“I hate that fellow,” Will said after a while. “I do. I’d drown him in the Ea if I thought I could do it without poisoning all the fish.” 

“If it keeps raining like this, you won’t have to.”

“If it keeps raining like this, any wheat that survived the last four weeks is going to rot where it lies, and then we won’t have to worry about Denny next season in any case.”

Merlin wished there were some reassuring reply he could make to this, but Will’s bleak assessment was all too likely. 

“What will you do?” Merlin asked. “If it gets as bad all that?”

He and Will had barely said ten words to each in the past four weeks. Merlin felt suddenly that it was very important for him to know what Will had been thinking. The rest of the village had spent the last month trying desperately not to think about what might be coming, and anyone else would have put this question off with a repressive _let’s see what the spring brings_ , but Will was not the sort of person to tell himself comfortable lies. 

“I don’t know,” Will answered, looking unsettled. “Leave, I suppose. I’d have to, wouldn’t I? We all would.”

“Where?” Merlin pressed. “If it comes to that.”

“I don’t know.” Will pulled a billhook off the shavehorse’s bench and flipped the hazel spar over so that one end faced up at him. He lay the billhook’s blade carefully against that end, and braced the other end of the spar against the ground, then tapped the butt end of the branch against the dirt until the blade bit down. “Can’t imagine anyone round here would be too thrilled to have us. Unskilled labor is cheaper than weak ale, and people in these parts too poor for that, even.”

Will tucked the butt end of the spar under his arm and worked the billhook down its length, splitting it in two. The symmetrical halves peeled away from each other with a soft cracking sound.

“You’re not unskilled,” Merlin said.

Will waved his fingers dismissively. “I mean half-skilled, with no prospects and no money to enter a guild, or anything like that.” He laid one half of the split spar aside and repeated the same riving process on the remaining piece, quartering the original branch. “Even if we did find someone else’s field to till, we’d be living on pennies.”

“We’re already living on pennies.”

“Yeah, but we’ve got neighbors here to feed us when all the pennies have gone." Will flipped the billhook over in his hand and used it sharpen both ends of the spar. Three confident cuts on each end - swipe, swipe, swipe - and he laid the billhook aside, grasping the center of the flexible spar with both hands, twisting and folding the wood in half. The midpoint of the branch splintered, the spar bending at an acute angle, now folded into a “v” and ready to be driven down into a bundle of thatch. Will tossed the finished spar aside and gave Merlin a searching look. “What about you, then?”

Merlin did not much like having the question turned back on him. He thought maybe he should not have asked it in the first place.

“I don’t know,” Merlin replied. “I was trying not to think about it.” He did not like to imagine Ealdor emptied of inhabitants, its excess livestock rooting about in abandoned grain sheds and weedy, overgrown fields. “I suppose my mother would decide.”

Will chose a new branch from the pile without making any comment. Will did not have any mother to make decisions for him, and any plans regarding his own survival would be made, by necessity, by him. It occurred to Merlin suddenly that there was a possible, plausible future on the horizon where they ended up in different places. 

This alarming thought wrinkled his entire forehead, but he kept it to himself.

“Do you really think Denny would let us starve?” Merlin asked instead. “He was our neighbor, before.”

“I think he’d sooner torch his family’s field than part with a single pea from his lordship’s granary.” Will glared at the strip of wood in his hands, his face shadowed by more than just the firelight. For a moment Merlin thought he could see the selfsame spark he’d felt earlier, those hot coals always smoldering just shy of a torch. “You know what these people are like, Merlin. We’re just milk cows to them. It doesn’t make any difference to them who we are. They’ll wring us dry, and cull us when we haven’t got anything left in our bags." Will shook his head. “We're livestock. We don’t matter.” 

Merlin stirred. “No, you’re wrong.”

“Oh, aye?”

“Aye, so,” Merlin replied. “We all matter."

Will did not look convinced. Merlin continued, "Maybe not to Denny and his lot, I mean - but you know what I mean.”

 _You matter to me,_ was what Merlin wanted to say. But Will would have found this excruciatingly embarrassing.

Will held Merlin’s gaze for a moment, then went back to his work. Merlin wasn't sure what he was thinking. Will looked like someone had been kicking him up and down the green all night, but Merlin knew better than to call him defeated.

“Anyhow, I don’t think it will come to that,” Merlin decided.

“No?” Will was splitting his second piece of wood.

“No.”

“And why’s that?”

“I just have a feeling.”

“Oh, lor,” Will said, lifting his eyes briefly to the ceiling. “He prophesizes now.”

“No,” Merlin protested. “I just…” 

Merlin saw again the ghostly woman in the motehall, her flesh like dead fish, her thick cloak hanging loose as the bags under her eyes. She had been frightening to look at, and he had panicked, because he’d been seeing something he shouldn’t have seen, again, and he’d been alone, and he’d felt like he would never be warm again in his life. 

But if he thought back on it, now, here with his hands suspended over a reassuringly toasty fire and Will’s even more reassuring outline sitting there on the other side of it -

 _Winter sceal geweorpan_ , she had said, and Merlin oughtn’t to have known what it meant but he did, and it was a promise truer than prophecy, a surety only the natural world claim, like the certainty of the sun rising in the east, or water rolling downhill, or trees budding every spring as northward-winging birds nested in their branches.

 _“Winter must turn,”_ he murmured.

“What’s that?”

Merlin settled back against the leg of Will’s table, which was a real one, with four legs and a joined top, not a collapsible trestle and board like the one in Merlin’s own cott. It did not so much as wobble when he put his weight against it - like everything else in the house, it had been built a long time ago by a good man with strong hands, who knew the value of something solid to lean upon. “I just have a funny feeling, is all.” He stretched his legs out toward the fire, eyeing the bundle of uncut spars. “Can I give you a hand?”

“It’d go faster if I just cut your fingers off myself,” Will muttered.

Merlin took this slight in the spirit in which it was intended, and did not mind it. He had never pretended to be any great shakes at craft.

“I’ll just egg you on then, yeah?” Merlin picked up a splinter of wood from the floor and flicked it in Will’s direction, missing his head but just nicking his shoulder. “Faster, you lout.”

“Bugger off, Merlin.”

“Hurry it up and maybe I will. I’ve got plenty of these.” He picked up another wood chip. “Come on, William, you know Denny likes us to be _productive_.”

Will shook his head, breaking into a crooked, rueful grin. It was the first time Merlin had seen him smile in weeks. 

“You should have just let me thump him, Merlin,” said Will.

“All right,” Merlin conceded, an impossible weight lifting from his chest. He tossed the wood chip aside. “So I should have done. Next time I will. But if they drag you up to the manor court, I’m not coming to fetch you.”

“Fair enough.” Will pointed at the chest of tools stashed away behind Merlin, which Merlin obligingly rolled over to retrieve for him. “I do think I might have taken a few of his teeth out, though.”

“Teeth out?” Merlin echoed. “You’d have taken his head off.” He pushed the chest towards Will with his foot. “You can’t just go round killing people with your bare knuckles, Will. It makes the rest of us feel we’ve got no arms to speak of.”

Will snorted and fished another knife out from the chest. Despite his earlier misgivings, he rolled both that and an uncut spar across the floor to Merlin, who picked up both implements and set about making a painstaking little starter notch at the end of his branch. “Erm...” There was one other question on Merlin's mind, though he wasn’t sure he really wanted to ask it. “Listen - you didn’t actually burn that tally stick, did you?” 

There was a little pause, and then Will said, “No.” 

“Oh.” Merlin smothered a sigh of relief, flipping his hazelwood stick over and trying to nock the other end without removing a bit of his finger. “Good. I wasn’t sure - but that’s good. I’d been wondering.”

“I threw it in the Ea.”

Merlin’s hand did slip, then, the blade biting into the base of his thumb. He barely noticed, his eyes snapping back to Will. “You did not.”

“I did,” Will said, shaking his head, a helpless, almost disbelieving smile spilling across his face. “I did. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He covered his face with his hands for a moment, then laughed through his fingers. “Some poor fish is in a cartload of debt right now.”

For a moment, Merlin did not know what to say. The rumble of thunder rolling from one end of the valley to the other echoed in the stunned silence, punctuating Will’s admission with its own deep, booming chuckle. 

And then Merlin realized precisely what he had been missing. 

He knew perfectly well that he could not change the weather. It was long past time that he'd stopped trying.

There was nothing for it. When the thunder drummed out a second clap of mirth, Merlin dropped his head back against the leg of the table and laughed right along with it.


	7. Yule

_It fell out on midwinter’s day,  
_ _The flakes of snow did fall, did fall,  
_ _Our lad asked leave of his lady mum  
_ _If he might go play at ball._

 _“Go play at ball, my own dear boy,”  
_ _Said our lad’s lady mum,  
_ _“But let me hear no complaint of you,  
_ _At night when home you come.”_

Duncan’s resonant voice filtered through a web of ice-encrusted tree trunks, reaching Merlin's ears long before the singer himself became visible. A number of participants joined in on the next verse, the ragged chorus carrying sharply across a snow-blanketed forest floor. None of the singers were particularly in tune, but Merlin hummed along anyhow as he ambled through the woods, his gloved hands stuffed into his pockets.

 _Down by the river he met three lads  
_ _Three jolly lordlings all,  
_ _Oh, there he asked those same three lads,  
_ _If they would play at ball._

 _“Oh, we are lords’ and ladies’ sons,  
_ _Born in a noble's hall,  
_ _And you are but some poor maid’s child  
_ _Born in an ox’s stall!”_

Merlin caught a glimpse of the singers through the trees. The clearing in which they labored was a coppice where cultivated willow trees had been systematically cut close to the ground, encouraging flexible withy branches to grow from the chopped stumps. Duncan and the rest of his neighbors were hardly recognizable, bundled up with scarves pulled high around vulnerable necks and hats pulled low over reddened ears, but their boisterous voices differentiated them from one another easily enough. 

Merlin half-sang the next verse to himself, crunching through the snow at the edge of the wood. “ _Oh, you may be lords’ and ladies’ sons, born in a noble's hall, but at the last I’ll make it clear, that I am above you all!_ ”

He stepped into a clearing dotted with chopped willow stools, some of which were too young to be harvested and still sporting crowns of flexible withy shoots. Duncan and the others were busy at work weaving the thicker, already-harvested withies onto a number of prepared frames to make sections of portable fencing. A stack of previously completed panels leaned against a tree at the edge of the copse. 

Merlin wiped a crusting of snow off one of the stumps and sat down next to a faceless bundle of winter clothes. 

“Ey up, Merlin,” the bundle said.

“’Lo,” Merlin replied. “How’s hurdle-making?”

“Nithering,” said Will. He held a thicker branch trapped between his knees and was carving one end to a taper, his ungloved fingers looking very red. Five other such staves were already standing upright nearby, their tapered ends driven into holes in a log lying across the ground. The log served as a jig which kept the vertical bits of the fence upright until willow withies could be woven horizontally through them in the latticework pattern that would hold the panel together. 

“I’m frozzed,” Will said.

“Lost any fingers?”

“Not yet.” Will cast a dark look at the others, who were still belting out their discordant tune. “Think my ears are about to fall off, though.”

 _Our lad built a bridge with the beams of the sun  
_ _And over the river he went, went he;  
_ _And after they followed, the three jolly lordlings,  
_ _And drownded they were all three!_

Will rolled his eyes and went back to carving. Merlin stuck a hand into his pocket and pulled out the item he’d trekked up here to deliver. “Hand,” he ordered.

“I need all ten of those fingers,” Will said, but he wasn’t really looking, and held out his free hand regardless.

Into it, Merlin dropped a heavy stone, worn down to smoothness by water, or maybe wind. It was vaguely goose egg-shaped, but larger, able to be cradled comfortably between two hands. It radiated a sourceless heat, as if Merlin had just plucked it out of the fire.

“Midwinter luck,” Merlin said, though he was more than a week early for solstice gifts. “Keep your fingers warm, if you like them so much.”

Will’s eyebrows rose. He inspected the stone curiously, then looked around, but there was neither firepit nor torch to be seen. “Handy,” he remarked in an undertone, wrapping both hands around the stone. “Where’s yours?”

Merlin patted his belt pouches and the pockets of his trousers, all of which rattled as if his entire get-up was stuffed with pebbles.

“Don’t make me laugh,” Will said.

“I’m cold!”

Will did laugh, then, the bright sound ringing out over the snowy coppice and tangling with the others' continued verses. _Lady mild called home her child, and laid him cross her knee; and with a switch of bitter withy she gave him slashes three!_

Will rose from the willow stump and planted the stave into the last open spot on the jig, hammering it down into the hole until it was able to stand on its own. “Let’s go home," he said. "I’ve had about enough of these knockabouts.” He raised his voice pointedly. “They’ve given up working, anyhow!”

Duncan waved an unperturbed withy at him, nearly whacking Peter on the nose. Will tossed them a careless salute and steered Merlin out of the clearing, one hand around Merlin's elbow. The trees swallowed them immediately, and the remaining strains of their peers’ working song reached them as if from a much greater distance. 

_“Oh the withy!” said the lad to his mother,  
_ _“that causes me to smart, to smart!  
_ _The withy shall be_  
 _The very first tree  
_ _That perishes at the heart!”_

They tromped along through the snow, away from the noise. “We’re taking the long way back, then?” Merlin asked.

“Unless you want to walk back with that lot." Will jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “But I’ll tell you, we came up across the Pond, and not a one of them had anything sunny to say about it.”

Merlin grimaced. The Pond was the village’s sardonic euphemism for the winter wheat field, which had transformed abruptly from floodplain to skating rink over the course of a single week, locking hundreds of acres of potentially dead seed under two inches of solid ice. Merlin didn’t suppose he himself would have had anything good to say about it, either, had he been walking across it, but Will was correct in assuming that Merlin did not want to listen to fatalistic discussion just then. “I’ll take the woods.”

“I thought so.”

There was no path in this part of the forest, but they ambled vaguely east toward the border road, which they could follow down a series of hills back into the valley. The sinking sun filtered through the bare canopy and refracted off moulded shields of ice clinging to the trees, casting a pretty glitter across the ground. The blanket of snow muffled the crunch of their boots, and the only sound was the flutter of sparrows darting from one ice-sheathed branch to the next. Twice they caught a glimpse of deer, smooth, slim forms slipping ghostlike and silent through the trees.

The pebbles in Merlin’s pockets warmed his front as though he were carrying a litter of kittens under his coat. Will, meandering alongside him, turned the warming rock over in his hands with interest. “How long does this last?”

“Dunno,” Merlin shrugged. “Didn’t know I could do it until this morning.”

Will wrapped the fingers of both hands around the stone’s radiant surface, looking uncharacteristically content. “I’ll come see you if I need a top-up.”

“You do that. And I’ll come see you if I ever need a door replaced, which reminds me, I meant to say - I need a door replaced.”

“What’s the matter with the one you’ve got?”

“The bottom’s all rotted out. I’m getting mice in my bedroll.”

“You’re a talented fellow, Merlin; mend it yourself.”

“Mother says she’d rather you did it.”

Will nodded sagely. “That’s ’cos she knows you’d try to plug the gap with withy wattle and make a hash of things.”

“That’s rubbish. I'd never do that, and it’s slander to say that I would."

"What would you do, then?" 

"Kick out the bottom boards and let the cat in after the mice. Obviously.”

Will snorted; Merlin shrugged easily at him, sidestepping a silver birch whose papery bark was paler than the snow piled at its base. A tiny squirrel burst out of a snowdrift and shot up the trunk, its skittering claws preternaturally loud in the blanketed winter wood. Behind the trees, the sun sank lower, splashing the snow with orange puddles and enkindling driblets of icicles to a candle-like glow. 

Merlin ambled along aimlessly, in no rush to return home. Winter was far from his favorite season, but it did have its attractions, the most important of which was that nobody else ever wanted to be out in it. The deeper into the forest they went, the less likely it was that they would be seen, which meant that Merlin could loosen the chokehold grip with which he normally kept his magic throttled, a little bit at a time, until it broke free from him entirely and sprang away, bounding from one tree to the next like a colt turned out to pasture.

Merlin was happy to let it play. Sometimes he directed it to tug on spindly branches far out of his reach, discreetly dumping loads of snow progressively closer and closer to Will’s shoulders - twice Will warned him to cease and desist; twice Merlin vociferously blamed wind or rising temperatures, though the air did not stir and the weather was hardly warm enough for snow-slumps.

“Hang on - ” Will said, pausing at the edge of the trees to squint down at the border road. 

Merlin, who had not calculated for this sudden stop, winced: his last unnaturally jostled tree branch dumped its entire sagging load directly on top of Will’s head. Will dropped the rock Merlin had given him, sputtering, then yanked his hat off and smacked Merlin across the face with it, leaving Merlin spitting snow and bits of tree bark out of his mouth.

“Sorry,” Merlin said, but he was laughing.

Will jammed the hat back onto his head, looking grumpy. Merlin scooped up the rock and handed it back to him. Will gestured out at the road with it. “Frostfaire claims another one.”

Merlin looked where he was pointing. The thin, hard track of the border road was completely obstructed by a heavyset wooden wagon sporting high walls, a curved roof, and four expansive wheels. A single wagon shaft connected the cart to the left side of a placid-looking dray, who swished her tail idly in the fading light, casting long, flickering shadows down the road. The shaft's twin, which should have been hooked to the horse’s other side, dragged uselessly on the ground, half of it hanging from the horse’s yoke and the other half still attached to the front of the cart. A portly, heavily-cloaked figure scampered agitatedly around the cart in a marked contrast to his horse’s calm demeanor, darting from hitch to wagon and back again as if he did not know where to even look.

Will sighed and stepped out of the trees, slipping his rock under his coat. Merlin followed him down the embankment to the road, where the stranger caught sight of them immediately. The man jumped near onto his tiptoes and clapped his hands to a cap that looked like it was lined with fur, and not common cat or fox either. 

“Gods be praised!” the stranger cried, his bronze-skinned face shining with excitement behind a neat black beard. There were a few grey hairs mixed in - Merlin would have guessed him to be perhaps somewhere in his late forties. “Humanity! I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you lads! We thought we’d had it out here on this godsforsaken track, didn’t we?” This last bit he appeared to address to the horse, who, in keeping with the limitations of horses everywhere, said nothing in return.

“Hallo there,” Will said, taking in the situation with a raised eyebrow. “Had some trouble?”

“Enough for a lifetime, my boy, enough for a lifetime.” The man swept the hat from his head - beaver fur, Merlin decided, as the inside flashed past; not an aristocrat, then, but wealthy enough - before shaking both their hands. “ _Terribly_ sorry to be such a bother - I don’t suppose you could point me in the direction of the nearest inn, could you? I’ve got to get this mended and the day’s wearing on, you know - it’s a bit nippy to be sleeping out here, and I really did think I’d get further today - ”

Merlin and Will exchanged looks. “No inns, mate,” Will said. “Not ’til Pedders Hope, anyhow, and that’s a day’s ride up the road.”

“Oh,” the man said. “Oh, dear.”

“Where were you headed?” Will asked, though Merlin thought Will had probably already guessed.

“Town by the name of Isbridge.” The man worried at his lower lip, eyeing the border road’s steep incline and the craggy pass marking the beginning of Narrow Neck. “Er...it looked rather closer on the map, I must say.”

“You’re vending at Midwinter Market?”

“Why, yes!” the man said, his face clearing with momentary relief. “Yes, I am! Or - well, trying to, anyhow - however did you know?”

“A lot of folk come up this way for Frostfaire,” Merlin said. Will bent down to inspect the broken hitching shaft. “People always have trouble on this road. We’ve got an arkwright and a clothier staying in our village already.”

“Not staying,” Will corrected. “Passing through.”

“Staying for a few days,” Merlin repeated firmly. “Down in the valley. It’s hardly an inn, but we can take you there, if you haven’t got anywhere else to go.”

“Oh!” the man exclaimed, nearly crushing his hat between his fingers as he wrung his hands together. “That’s very good of you, very good indeed! I’ll be eternally grateful, erm…”

“Merlin,” Merlin offered, holding out a hand. 

The man pumped it enthusiastically. “Merlin! Oh, yes, very good! Thrilled to meet you.”

“And that’s William,” Merlin said. “He might fix your cart, if you’re nice to him.”

Will tossed a sardonic smile over his shoulder. “If the man can pay for labor and materials, you mean.”

The man hurried forward, wringing the cap in his hands. “But of course, my boy, naturally! Wouldn’t dream of doing otherwise!” He peered over Will’s shoulder. “Is it _very_ broken, do you think?”

Will poked the splintered remains of the shaft. “This bit? Yeah, it’s paggered. Could be worse, though; everything else looks all right.” He stood up, squinting into the setting sun. “Were you trying to take this thing up Narrow Neck?”

“Afraid I don’t know what you mean, young man,” the merchant said, with a wide, apologetic smile. “My maps aren’t altogether very good. I’m traveling north, if that means anything.”

“North up Narrow Neck?” Will said. “You oughtn’t take your wagon up there. That pass is a nightmare even in fine weather; it’s been iced over for weeks now.”

The man looked alarmed, and Merlin nodded in agreement. “It’s not really meant for carts and things,” Merlin explained. “People are always popping wheels up there.”

“Oh, dear,” the man muttered. “Oh, this is a bit of a pickle, isn’t it? I don’t suppose there’s another way to reach this place?”

“You could take the King’s Road,” Will said, though he traded a doubtful look with Merlin. “It’s on the other side of the valley, runs northwest all the way to Carr Naeddran, but you don’t want to go that far - you can cut east past the Aedreweg after a day or so. It’ll take longer, but it’s wide enough for wagons.”

The man clapped his hands together, squashing the much-abused hat between his palms, then grabbed Will’s hand and shook it just as enthusiastically as he had Merlin’s. “Oh, that’s splendid! Absolutely wonderful, lad; can’t thank you enough! Do you think you could jot that down for me? I’m no hand at directions at all.”

Will extricated his hand. “Er...Merlin can draw you a little map. Let’s get down from here first, though. Have you got a shaft-socket or something?”

“Yes! Oh, yes, in the back there, and a spare wheel, and an extra trace. I always come prepared, you know.”

Merlin wandered around to the back of the wagon to look for the shaft socket, while Will asked whether the man was really traveling alone. The skepticism in his voice was controlled enough to be polite, but still readily apparent to Merlin, who knew that Will, like himself, was wondering about the King’s Road, and whether or not it might be safer to send this fellow back where he’d come from.

“Alone? Oh, yes, my boy. Can’t spare anyone else from the shop at the moment. Midwinter, you know, we’re snowed under with commissions. It’s been a madhouse.”

“What sort of wares...”

Merlin unlatched the fold-down door at the back of the cart and promptly dropped the ramp upon his toes, a soft gasp escaping his lips.

 _Books_. 

Hundreds of them, it looked like, though it couldn’t possibly be that many; it wasn’t _that_ big of a wagon; but it looked like hundreds of them, stuffed neatly into heavy chests with their spines protruding, or stacked on top of each other and bound with twine. There was a massive volume leaning against the back wall that looked heavy enough kill a man, if dropped on him from a height, and in front of it was a small box filled with intricately detailed miniatures the size of chicken eggs. Precarious shelving was stuffed with bundles of parchment and vellum, stacks of rag paper both plain and richly dyed, needles and thread in twenty different colors. Tacked to any blank space on the walls were sheets of parchment emblazoned with sample scripts and alphabets in both capital and lowercase, all featuring postscripts in the vein of _If it please any Man to purchase any Boke enprynted after the Forme of this present Lettre, let hym come to Stacionere’s Row in the Upper Town, across the Scriveners Guilde, and he shall have them good chepe!_

Merlin gaped into the back of the wagon. Just in the stack closest to him he could see six different titles that each sounded like the most interesting thing in the world, and then he looked at the next stack over and saw six others. 

“What’s the matter, my lad?” Their new acquaintance appeared at Merlin’s shoulder, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Haven’t you ever seen a book before?”

Merlin tried to shut his mouth and swallow, certain that Will would laugh at him. “No,” he croaked. Then - “You’re a stationer.”

“Yes, yes, got it in one!” The man stuck out his hand for yet another vigorous handshake. “Henry Hedyngham _de_ Belhamyslonde, of Hedyngham Stationers and Stationers’ Supplies! Absolute pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Henry _what_?” Will asked. He came around the back of the wagon himself, but unlike Merlin, he turned a little green around the edges when he saw what was inside. He gave Henry a disbelieving look. “You’ve not seriously been carting this lot around with you.”

“Carting...?” Henry looked puzzledly at the treasure trove of books as if it were nothing unusual. “My wares? Of course I have! I’ve got to get up to Isbridge for Midwinter Market, remember?”

“You can’t take this lot up the highway, mate,” Will said weakly, looking at Merlin for help. 

“Whyever not?”

Will stared at him helplessly. The man looked to be completely in earnest, his wide, innocent face poking out from his scarf and cloak. He was wearing so many layers of heavy wool that it was hard to tell where the clothes ended and Henry Hedyngham began. 

“You’re not from round here, are you?” Will said finally.

“Well, no,” Henry admitted. “How did you know?”

Merlin and Will exchanged looks. 

“Just a guess,” Will said. He reached past Merlin into the back of the wagon and dragged out the shaft-socket, which Merlin, too distracted by the endless piles of manuscripts, had not even noticed. “Lend me a hand, will you?” he muttered to Merlin. “I really don’t fancy being out on the road with this stuff after dark.”

Merlin allowed himself to be pulled away, though not without an internal whine of protest. Henry hovered behind them, flitting from the front of the wagon to the muzzle of his horse, as Will fit both halves of the broken shaft into opposite ends of a tubular wooden shaft-socket, then hammered in the splintered ends until the cylinder of the shaft socket completely covered the broken area. It would hold the shaft straight at least until they could reach the village, like a splint applied to a broken bone.

“Oh, that’s capital, lads. Capital. Fine work.” Henry patted the neck of his horse anxiously.

“I think you ought to walk with us,” Will said, eyeing the temporary socket joint as if he didn’t completely trust it to hold together. “This thing’s got enough weight in the back already.”

“Of course!” Henry scampered to collect the stout little mare’s leads, tripping over his own feet and fumbling the reins to the ground. “Oh my - let me just close up the back - ”

“I’ll do it,” Merlin offered, and hurried around to the rear of the wagon. There under the barrel roof were the same hundred volumes, their leather bindings blending together into soft towers of shadow. Embossed filaments of gold tooling winked at him in the dying light.

“Before Yule, Merlin!”

Merlin scooped the ramp up from the ground and swung it closed, latching it in place. 

Will gave Merlin a knowing look when Merlin came back around to the front of the wagon. “You do know you can’t actually have one of those?” Will murmured. “Bit out of your price range.”

Merlin wrinkled his nose. “What do you know about it? You can’t even read.”

“Yeah, but I can count, though,” Will replied, making a gesture as if rubbing coins between his fingers. 

Merlin scowled and slapped Will's hand away.

Turning the cart to point southwards was a bit of a production. Will refused to let Henry’s horse drag the cart around, for fear of putting too much pressure on the broken shaft, so they unhitched the mare from the wagon completely and reversed the thing themselves, in a laborious process that involved much hauling on the front axle and a startling number of _whoopsie_ ’s from Henry, who had been tasked with the apparently difficult job of keeping the shafts off the ground while Merlin and Will attempted to heave their way through a ten-point turn, the slow creaking of the wagon’s overtaxed joints reassuring none of them.

“Do you know,” Henry beamed, once they had finally got the thing turned around and hitched back up to the horse, “I’m quite glad I broke down where I did, now I think of it!” He wiped his brow with the beaver-lined cap, though he had done precious little pushing to merit the sweat. “This is just like an adventure!”

Will stared deadpan at Merlin over the shafts of the wagon. Merlin ducked his head and turned his laugh into a cough, and together they rolled ponderously down the hill.

***

By the time they made it back to the village, evening stars had been sprinkled across the sky, and the walls of the valley had folded Ealdor into soft, purple shadows. They left Henry’s wagon in the yard next to Will’s cottage and stabled the mare in the nearest byre big enough for her, where she stood at a markedly tall contrast to Gilbert’s little trio of goats, who eyed her with narrow-eyed suspicion. Will peeled off from Merlin and Henry to find Matthew and explain their newest guest, while Merlin walked Henry back from the byre to Will’s house.

“You’ll probably want your things unloaded,” Merlin said. “Don’t want someone to make off with your cart in the middle of the night, not with all that lot inside.”

“Is that likely?” Henry asked, looking around anxiously. “It looks so...quaint.”

“No, no,” Merlin hurried to assure him. “Not from my neighbors, I mean. But we’ve had some strangers passing through lately.” He unlatched the back of the wagon again and lowered the ramp to the ground. “Mostly regular folk. Some others...less regular, I suppose." Merlin frowned to himself. "We had a band of thieves come through, not a fortnight gone. It was a mess.”

It had been more than a mess, in all honesty - the thieves had presented themselves as normal travelers, and had wined and dined their way through three nights of hospitality before making off with a basket of chickens, two sacks of grain, a rasher of bacon from every house hosting them, a collection of smaller livestock, and, _bafflingly_ , a small number of cattle. Merlin didn’t know how they’d managed it - it was trouble enough herding Ealdor’s lumbering milk cows out of one pasture and into the next, never mind out of the pastures completely and down an unfamiliar road - but he had an unpleasant suspicion that there had been more _unusual_ talents involved than the typical robber’s sleight of hand. 

Unfortunately, most of his neighbors seemed to be of the same mind, and they were more than willing to air their grievances over drinks in the motehall, though whenever the conversation had turned to alerting the bailiff and the king’s shiriff, Merlin had always taken himself home. The likelihood of the king even remotely caring about a place as remote as Ealdor was essentially nil, but Merlin didn’t want to hear about what happened to “unusual” folk apprehended by the lord’s men, criminal or no.

“Oh, dear, I’m sorry,” Henry said, dragging out a chest that was much too heavy for him. He puffed out his cheeks as he lifted. “That’s very unlucky.”

“What’s unlucky?” said Will, appearing around the side of the wagon. He took one look at Henry’s strained face and took the chest from him without being asked, lifting it into his own arms easily.

“Nothing,” Merlin said quickly. He did not want to bring up the previous weeks’ miseries in front of Will if he could avoid it. Will's cott was situated right on the village’s main thoroughfare, and because he always had extra space in his house, he was often cornered into hosting travelers during the lead-up to Midwinter Market, which meant that it had been terribly easy for Ealdor’s most recent unscrupulous guests to walk away with not only a cluster of his chickens and both of his new dairy goats, but also a number of his better tools, which would be perhaps prohibitively expensive for him to replace. 

Will had not said very much about it since his initial embittered rant upon the theft’s discovery - and he had never uttered so much as a word about how their guests had managed to pull it off, though he of all people must have known what it had meant - but Merlin knew he was preoccupied. He came to Hallmote and sat with the chattering throng like always, but he said very little, and did his work with his mouth set in a permanently grim line, and he was forever fiddling with little projects that he carried around in his hands, as if his fingers were trying to work out a problem his head couldn’t quite manage. Their walk in the woods had been a bright and unfortunately brief detour away from a very cloudy couple of weeks.

Merlin handed Henry a lighter basket full of rag paper samples. “I was just saying it’s unlucky, the cart breaking down like that.”

“Oh. Well, that’s all right, I can have that mended soon enough.” Will gave the front of the cart a critical once-over, adjusting the load in his arms. He lowered his voice in an aside to Merlin. “Matthew says he’ll come round later to say hello.” 

Merlin caught Will's eye briefly. More like examine the new arrival for soundness, Merlin thought, which he didn’t blame Matthew for at all, not after the last few weeks. But - as Merlin watched Henry fumble with the basket, strips of dyed rag paper fluttering down to the ground - he doubted very much that they had anything to fear from their newest visitor. Will rolled his eyes and carried the chest inside, stepping over Henry’s stray papers, which skittered across the muddy snow like brightly-colored sleds.

They unloaded the rest of Henry’s wares without incident, though Merlin found it extraordinarily difficult to pick up a stack of manuscripts without first stooping to puzzle out the writing on every single one of their covers, which made him less helpful than he ought to have been. Twice Will caught him staring at a pile of titles when he ought to have been carrying things, and after the full contents of Henry’s wagon had been disgorged into Will’s house, Merlin hovered at the edge of the collection of merchandise, trying to sneak surreptitious peeks into a chest whose cover had been partially dislodged.

“Is that all of it?” Will asked.

“Yes, I think that just about does it.” Henry planted a basket of binding threads down atop a latched chest. “This is really very good of you; I hope I haven't taken up too much room.”

Will waved him off vaguely, taking in the sheer volume of valuable goods now stacked under his roof with a slightly queasy look. His expression had nothing to do with the temporary loss of space, Merlin was sure, but rather with the fact that a single one of those volumes could likely have paid their dues to the manor for months. 

“You - ” Will began, then paused and shook his head. “Were you really going to cart all this up Narrow Neck?”

“I thought I was,” Henry said cheerfully. “Didn’t know any better, did I? At least not ’til you two fellows came along and sorted me out.”

“This is a lot of...” Will stared at the sprawling pile of chests, baskets, and stacked books, rubbing the back of his neck. “Aren’t these things sort of...valuable?”

“Valuable! I hope so!” Henry puffed up his chest a bit. “Finest craftsmanship in the Five Kingdoms!”

This was a rather extraordinary claim to make, but, as Merlin continued his discreet peeking at the chest by his feet, he saw that the embossed crest “Hedyngham Stationers and Stationers’ Supplies” was indeed followed by the tagline “Finest of the Five!” executed in a fanciful, curlicue script. In the crack between the chest’s lid and the interior, Merlin could just make out fragments of a few titles - _The Lay of the Luckless_ something or other, and _Herbarium_ , and something that started with a word he did not recognize and ended with _“collected heer in Thre Volumes.”_

Merlin looked up. On the other side of the room, Will was watching him suspiciously. Merlin stepped away from the chest, locking both hands behind his back. “Er...shall we get something to eat, then?”

Henry perked up dramatically at the mention of food; which, given that he had already been enthusiastic enough before, was enough to set him nearly bouncing in place. “Splendid idea, lad. How can I help?”

“No, that’s all right,” Will said quickly, before Henry could blunder into the cupboard and make a mess of his pots. “I’ll handle that. You just - settle in, all right? I’ll just see Merlin off home and then we’ll have supper.”

“Home?" Merlin blurted. "What - ”

Will steered Merlin outside, where night had asserted itself completely, plunging the valley into a chill slab of darkness.

“Have you even had a look at this fellow?” Will hissed. “Once you start chatting him up, there’ll be no end to it. I’m up before the cock crows tomorrow; you can’t make friends with him just now.”

“I was only going to ask - ”

“Not tonight, Merlin.”

“But I - ”

“Bye now, Merlin!” Will pushed Merlin firmly into the road and disappeared back inside.

Merlin’s mother gave him a surprised look when he ducked in through their door a few minutes later, rubbing his hands together and shivering. The pebble lining to his jacket had finally gone cold - he wondered whether Will’s rock was still burning.

“You’ve been ages,” Hunith remarked. She passed him a bowl of pottage, which smelled strongly of leeks and onions. “Whatever were you doing?”

“Erm…” Merlin tried to think of the best way to explain Henry Hedyngham, _de_ Belhamyslonde, to her, but found he could not quite put it into words. “I’ll introduce you tomorrow.”

She gave him an odd look, but they ate their dinner together and went to bed without any further questions, and when Merlin fell asleep, he dreamt that he’d borrowed _The Lay of the Luckless Herbalist, newely collected heer in Thre Volumes_ , and that it was the most exciting thing he had ever laid eyes on.

***

Early the next morning, Merlin found Will out in the yard. The sun had not yet crested the ridge of the valley, and the grey light that filtered through the uniform slab of clouds overhead was weak and uncertain, as if the sky, like Merlin, had not yet decided whether it was really awake.

“Good morning,” Merlin said from the opposite side of the fence.

“If you say so,” Will replied blearily. He was working a very large log, presumably hewing out the timber for their guest’s new wagon shaft, though he looked like he was mostly still asleep. It remained to be seen whether it was altogether safe for him to be swinging an axe around in that condition, though to be fair, Merlin would not have trusted himself to swing an axe like that in _any_ condition, awake or no, so he had to give Will credit for the sort of craftsman’s manual dexterity that Merlin himself did not expect to ever possess. 

“What’s the matter with you?” Merlin asked. “Didn’t you sleep at all?”

Will stared muzzily over the fence. “I tripped over him this morning,” he said, as if haunted by the memory. “He thought it was all good fun and wanted to come with me on my morning round.”

“Did you take him?”

“Of course I took him; he’s like grip-grass, isn’t he? I can’t get rid of him. He lost half the eggs and stepped in every bit of muck Hely dropped. It’s a good thing I haven’t got goats anymore, or they’d have bowled him well over.” 

It was not, in fact, a good thing that Will did not have goats anymore, but Merlin was sure that Will did not want to talk about it, and there was little Merlin could say that would make Will feel better about it, anyhow. He climbed onto the fence and sat upon the top bar, watching Will hack evenly spaced notches into the side of the log. “Where’s Henry at now?"

Will gave Merlin a long-suffering look. “Said he was going to fry me an egg.”

Merlin wrinkled his nose. “It’s too early.”

“I know it. Said they do things differently where he comes from.”

“Where does he come from?”

“I didn’t ask. And neither should you, unless you want to lose an ear to his yammering.”

There came then the telltale creaking of Will's heavy front doors, and then the object of their discussion came toddling into the yard, carrying two wooden bowls and looking much better rested than Will. His beaver cap was squashed, as though he’d used it for a pillow, but his bronze-brown face was as bright and glowing with vivacity as ever. “Oh, it’s Merlin!” he exclaimed with delight, upon seeing him perched atop the frost-encrusted fence. “Let me just make up another plate.”

“No, no, it’s all right,” Merlin hurried to assure him, before he could disappear back inside. “I’m not hungry.”

“Oh, but you've got to eat something - ”

“He can pick off mine,” Will said. He took the steaming bowl out of Henry’s hands with a polite _thank you_ , then handed the whole thing to Merlin and returned to work. The _thwock_ of his axe blade sinking into the log echoed faintly in the early morning stillness, mingling with the distant honking of geese cramming themselves into the pond’s last patch of unfrozen water. 

Henry put his hands on his hips and breathed in deeply, exhaling with a sigh of satisfaction as he surveyed the valley. “Magnificent,” he said, dark eyes sparkling. “Really splendid. Puts me in mind of a verse out of one of our commissions.” Behind Henry, Will closed his eyes in a despairing way; Merlin could not help but smile. “ _To the short day and the great circle of shadow I have come, and to the whitening of the hills, when the grass loses its color: and yet my desire remains ever green, it is so rooted in the hard stone and bound up in the water’s chains._ ”

Merlin forgot about the oats and eggs cooling fast in his bowl. “What's that?” he asked, enchanted, even as Will shook his head fervently behind Henry’s back. “Where does that come from?”

Henry scooped a bit of his own breakfast into his mouth, making an approving noise as if it were the best thing he had ever tasted. “It’s a newer work, care of a young upstart, foreign fellow - bit of a sensation abroad just now. People in these parts are just starting to get wind of him; I’ve had three commissions for that manuscript this month alone.” He waved a hand, his mouth full. “In translation, of course; it’s all imported.” Wafting the bowl under Will nose, he urged Will again to take some food, offering a solicitous "Are you sure you're not hungry, lad? You've been up for ages."

The chunk of bread in his bowl was a white, fluffy variety unfamiliar to Merlin, and Merlin realized with a flash of approval that it must have been offered from Henry’s own supplies. Here, at least, was a guest who would not inconsiderately eat them out of house and home, though he might talk their ears off.

“Do you like poetry, then, lad?” Henry asked Merlin.

Merlin had to laugh. “I don’t know any.”

“Nonsense!” Henry exclaimed, accidentally bonking Will under the nose with the bowl. “Oh, excuse me, I’m sorry, lad.” He looked back at Merlin with a wide, encouraging smile. “Everybody everywhere knows a bit of poetry. It’s in our blood, you know. You’ve got songs and rhymes and things, haven’t you?”

“Erm…” Ealdor did, in fact, have quite a few of those things, but somehow Merlin felt that Henry was not looking for a limerickal commentary on the smallness of King Cenred’s between-the-legs bits, popular though such things were in the motehall. Will, obviously thinking the same thing, smirked, but Merlin jumped down from the fence before the conversation could turn to a line by line dissection of _The Serpent King at Carr Naeddran_ (or, to put it more accurately, the considerably more popular and infinitely more entertaining folk version _The Serpent King and his Sad Pin_ ). 

“Well!” Merlin said brightly. “Anyhow - I suppose I ought to be getting on with things. Lots to do, only so much light to do it in...”

“Oh, yes!” Henry shoveled the rest of his food into his mouth and set his bowl down on a stump. “You’re absolutely right. _To the short days we have come_ , and all that.” He readjusted his crumpled beaver cap on his head. “What’s on the docket for us today, lads?”

Merlin directed a bewildered glance at Will, who sank his axe again into the log’s soft bark with an _i told you so_ sort of finality. 

“Er...well,” Merlin said. “William’s going to be doing this for a bit - ”

“All day,” Will corrected him. “William’s going to be doing this all day.”

“So...so I suppose you could stay and watch, or…” Will was glaring at Merlin behind Henry’s back like Merlin was about a half-second away from taking an axe to the neck. “Or - you could come with me instead. Maybe that would be better. How do you feel about hurdle-making?”

“Oh, very good, my lad; I feel wonderful about it!” Henry clapped his hands together. “Now tell me, what’s a hurdle, then?”

Will put his axe down and had to bend over on the pretext of gathering woodchips to disguise a desperate paroxysm of laughter. Merlin shepherded Henry out of the yard and down the street, and it wasn’t until they had crossed the green and passed through the hedgerow that they began to hear the _thwack_ of Will’s axe again.

***

Henry, as it turned out, enjoyed hurdle-making quite as much as he thought he would. 

It was similar to sewing on a binding, he explained to Merlin, and while of course willow withies were a bit more intransigent to work with than a length of waxed thread, and obviously the stitching to secure a stack of quires together was more complex than the simple over-and-under of a hurdle frame, it was all the same in principle. He repeated this assurance to himself, in fact, every time he encountered a setback, and he attacked their hurdle with more enthusiasm than any of the neighbors working alongside him, and if he snapped a withy or two in the process, all was forgiven, because he was trying very hard.

Merlin, for his part, found that he enjoyed Henry’s company. Henry was an odd fellow, and no mistake about it, but he had any number of fascinating things to say, and he spoke to Merlin as companionably as if they were colleagues at the stationer’s shop, which was tremendously pleasant, though it did leave Merlin feeling a little as if his head were spinning by the end of the day - Merlin could not decide which thing he wanted to ask more questions about first, though his mind kept returning traitorously to the library of books sheltered under Will’s roof.

Will, once he had been left alone and unbothered, had done a handy job with Henry’s wagon shaft. “You’ll want the smithy for attaching this,” he'd said, as Henry admired the finished product. The new shaft leaned against a corner of the cottage's exterior wall, sanded down to creamy smoothness and utterly unrecognizable as the log it had been hewn from just that morning. “That’s not my area. We haven’t really got a proper smith round here, but there’s a fellow down the road who does a bit of basic work mending plows with me, coulter blades and that sort of thing - I’ll get him to have a look tomorrow, if that’s all right with you.”

“Certainly, of course, all fine,” Henry had agreed, nodding vigorously. “Whatever you think is best.”

They took supper together, clustered on the floor around the firepit, though Merlin had brought some supplies from home to add to the pot - discreetly, because it would violate every rule of hospitality to mention scarcity in front of their guest, but Will was really in no position to be feeding even one extra mouth, not with a half-empty coop of chickens and a single remaining dairy animal who wouldn’t even be good for milking again until after February calving. Henry, considerate as he was, and in keeping with his donation of bread at breakfast, added his own contribution in the form of salted herring strips, which Merlin had tried only once before and not liked very much, though he accepted Henry’s offering graciously regardless. Will chewed on his portion with his forehead wrinkled like an old dropcloth, as if he could not decide whether he liked it or not. He looked very silly, and Merlin could not suppress a small smile, watching him. It was a nice change, to see him frowning over something less urgent than the looming prospect of starvation.

“Never had seafood before, lad?” Henry asked.

Will shook his head with that same dubious look on his face, chewing slowly. “We’re not exactly on the water, are we?”

“What was that great big river I saw this morning, then?”

“Sea water, I meant. We eat plenty of fish.” Will eyed the remaining strip of herring uncertainly. “Not this sort.”

Merlin held out one of his own pieces. “Want another?”

Will took it. Henry smiled widely. Behind his round form, the clasps on his collection of boxes and chests flickered in the firelight, the Hedyngham business crest muddled and illegible in the shadows. There was more of that young upstart poet’s work in there somewhere, Merlin was certain. And also an _Herbarium_ , and a _Lay of the Luckless Something or Other_ , and some other wonderful and interesting thing collected in _Thre Volumes_. 

Merlin had never laid eyes on a book before yesterday, but now he felt that if he did not lay hands upon at least one before Henry left, he would regret it forever.

“Merlin.”

He started, jostling the empty bowl in his lap. “What? Sorry.”

Will was giving him a funny look. “I said, are you staying here or going home?”

“Er...” Merlin tried not to glance at the pile of books again. “Staying.” His mother would know where he was.

Will gave Henry his own bed, in accordance with the dictates of hospitality, but also because "He snores," which fact Will muttered out the corner of his mouth while flapping out a blanket for himself on the floor. “But he’s out before you can light a candle, so that’s all right.” And, indeed, no sooner had Henry disappeared behind the drape sectioning off Will’s sleeping area than the cottage filled with the muffled sound of stertorous slumbering. 

Will and Merlin, for their parts, made do with the floor, encircling the banked fire, one of them curled around each side. Merlin made sure his head fell closest to Henry’s sprawling pile of wares - for no particular reason, of course. Will, who had spent the entire day laboring on Henry’s wagon, did not seem to care where his own head landed, and hit the dirt floor as if his pallet were a magnetized lodestone. He would be asleep nearly as soon as Henry, if he weren’t out already - Merlin wasn’t sure Will had ever really woken up this morning to begin with.

Merlin rolled over to face away from the firepit. Just a few feet from his nose, a teetering stack of books stood shrouded in the emberlight. He kept his eyes trained on them for long time, until the coals had burned down enough that the gold inlay on the bottommost book’s spine was barely visible. 

It wouldn’t be right to go poking around in someone else’s things. But was it really poking if he didn’t touch anything? There was no harm in just having a look, surely. 

He rolled carefully to his knees, laying his blanket aside. He would not touch anything or open any chests, he reasoned. That would be all right.

Henry’s book piles were bound together with twine and not stacked in any discernible order. The bottommost manuscript in the tower closest to Merlin was a heavy volume bound in stiff, inflexible-looking leather, whose spine was ribbed with polished brass studs, its title reading simply _Historia_ , whereas the topmost book was slimmer but deeply inlaid in an intricate pattern of vines. A rectangular piece of transparent horn on the front cover protected the lengthy title _Pithy, plesaunt and profitable Workes of Maister Shelton, Poete for the Ages, nowe collected and newly published in Full._

Merlin inspected the rest of the stack, squinting a little in the dark and occasionally mouthing a word to himself when he came across an unfamiliar arrangement of letters. _The Lawes and Custumes of the Westrene Isles. Cronicle of Kyng Alisaundr. The Etymological Exercises of the most Vertuous and Lerned D. Gertrude. The Boke of Mapes, Volume the Seventhe: Riveres and Mountaines of Tirmaiur, with newely mesured Amendements and Correciouns. A Universel Glossarie of Physike and Helinge Remedyes. Politiks and Peples in the Kyngdom of Cynric and his Heirs -_ Merlin’s stomach gave a little squirm of pleasure at that one. That was _his_ kingdom! That was about them. Or not them, specifically, obviously, no one would write about them, but it was their land, wasn’t it? Cynric and Cerdic and all the rest. A book like that would be full of things he knew.

And - another thought, tantalizingly tempting - it was _also_ likely to be full of things he _didn’t_ know, things he didn’t know he _wanted_ to know, things he would never _know_ he wanted to know unless he were to actually have a look inside and see what they were -

His fingers were itching to untie the binder twine and open the first volume. He had sworn not to open any chests or touch anything, but could he just - maybe if he were to untie it...the _other_ way. He wouldn’t have to touch anything then.

Merlin stared at the stack of titles in front of him, and at the five similar stacks behind it, yearning to do something he knew he should not do, and also working very hard not to let it happen accidentally. This was an absolutely mad idea to be thinking about, with a stranger sleeping ten feet off and nothing but a thin sheet of cloth separating them from one another. But the urge was almost impossible to resist. The closest thing he could compare it to was when he had been forced to endure stretches of time where his mother didn’t want him Doing Things at home and he couldn’t get a moment alone with Will no matter what he did and he started to feel like he was getting twisted up into horrible knots inside, when the magic he concealed bubbled under his skin like it was trying to chew its way out of him, and then something _funny_ would happen in the field or at the motehall or on the street and everybody looked at him like they knew whose fault it was. 

But this was just a book, though. Will had said Henry slept like a log. And Merlin wouldn’t technically be touching anything.

Merlin chewed on his lip. The gravelly rumble of Henry’s snores was a constant drone in the corner of the cott. Merlin turned around to have a look at the curtain, just to check, and nearly swallowed his own tongue when he saw that Will was wide awake, propped up on one elbow and watching every move Merlin made.

“If you’re going to nick one, take something with a jewel inlay,” Will advised. “It’ll fetch more at market.”

“Will - ” Merlin hissed, scandalized. “I wasn’t going to - I would never!”

Will rolled his eyes. “Land's sake, Merlin, I know you wouldn’t.” He cast a glance over Henry’s things. “He could afford it, though.”

“Will!”

“I’m having you on, Merlin.

“You’ve just been robbed yourself, you know.”

Will raised his eyebrows. “Of half of what I had to begin with, which was nothing. Fancy merchants missing a few shillings ’cause you nicked their copy of “How to Grow Gold When You’ve Already Got Loads” isn’t the same. Fancy merchants aren’t going to starve come June.”

Merlin frowned. “Neither are you.”

Will lay back. “We’ll see.”

The heat of the glowing coals rippled the air over the firepit. Will set Merlin’s rock on his chest and wrapped his fingers around it, tapping out a mystery beat against its smooth surface.

“That’s still going, is it?” Merlin asked.

Will looked down his chin at the rock. “Still going, aye.”

“You like it, then?”

“It’s grand,” Will said, sincerely, turning it over. “You’ve outdone yourself, Merlin.”

“Thanks very much.”

There was a little pause. Will’s forehead bunched up as he stared at the ceiling. “I haven’t got anything for you,” he admitted finally.

“Oh - don’t, Will, it’s all right.” Merlin wouldn’t have given Will anything to begin with, if he’d known Will would work himself up over it. “It didn’t take a moment. It’s nothing.”

“It isn’t,” Will said. “It’s a fine little furnace.”

“It’s a rock.”

“So are rubies and things,” Will said stubbornly. “Only you can’t use rubies as bedwarmers, can you?”

“I’m going to use _you_ as a bedwarmer, if you don’t stop fussing.”

“As if you don’t do that all winter anyhow.”

There was no arguing with that. Merlin scooted over to look at another stack of texts, the dirt floor leaching heat from the seat of his trousers. Will followed him with his eyes, making Merlin wanted to fidget self-consciously.

“You’ve really gone top over tail for those things, haven’t you?” Will said finally.

Merlin felt himself turning red. “I’ve never seen one before.”

“Neither have I. I'm still not drooling over a bunch of fancy folk nattering on about nonsense.”

“It’s not like that,” Merlin said. “Well, maybe some of them,” he amended, pointing to the _Etymological Exercises_ , whose “most Vertuous and Lerned” author struck him as a touch pretentious. “But not all of them. I could learn anything I wanted if I had a room full of books like these! Look here - ” he tilted his head so could see the spines better, wishing he could just haul the whole stack onto his lap. “This is a manual for merchants who want to import funny fruits and vegetables and things; over land or water or what have you, and how to preserve things and what sells for what in different cities. And this is all about this one hill in Gwynedd; I don’t know what happened on it but I suppose it must have been something big, or else this is a lot of pages for nothing - and this one is about something called an as - an astrarium - ”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve no idea,” Merlin replied. “But if I read about it I would!” 

Will was giving Merlin the sort of look he usually reserved for elderly neighbors who wandered around the edge of his garden pontificating that of _course_ he could prevent murrain, if he just buried the ill animal upside down at the entrance to the pen so the other sheep would be made to walk over it.

“This is why people think you’re odd, you know,” Will said finally.

“No, it isn’t.”

“No, it isn’t," Will sighed. "But it ought to be.”

Merlin scrounged a left-over pebble from the inside of his pocket and threw it at Will. “Nobody asked your opinion,” he said. “These are _brilliant_.”

“Prove it.”

Merlin shook his head, but turned to scan another of the manuscript towers anyway. “Here. _The Plowman’s Lament_.”

“What’s that about?”

“I don’t know. I don’t need to read it, though.”

“Why not?”

“I expect it’ll be about the same as listening to years of your whinging.”

Will snorted. Merlin’s answering grin morphed unexpectedly and irresistibly into a jaw-cracking yawn, which, though he was desperate to stay up and examine Henry’s tantalizing wares, reminded him that he would regret doing so tomorrow morning, when he was up before the sun. With a last reluctant look at _Politiks and Peples_ , he crawled back into his makeshift bed and pulled the covers up to his chin. 

A shiver ran through him, and he yanked the blanket all the way up over his head. Maybe Will was right, and a hot rock wasn’t such a bad present after all.

“Listen, you nutter,” came Will’s voice, drifting over to Merlin from somewhere on the other side of the firepit. “Just ask the man if you can have a look tomorrow. He’s as mad as you are - he’ll probably trip over himself trying to show you a picture of an acorn, or something stupid like that.”

The image of _Herbarium_ ’s bold, blocky gold title text rose unbidden in Merlin’s mind. He did not say anything in reply, but he could not quell the little spigot of excitement that seemed to have twisted on inside him. _Just ask_ , Will had said. _Just ask the man if you can have a look._

Merlin snugged down into his pallet, drawing the blankets tighter around himself. Maybe he would.

***

All three of them were jolted out of their beds later that night by a terrific clamor outside.

Merlin stumbled up from the floor in a fog of confusion, his feet tangled in his blankets. Behind him, Will shot up from his pallet with a muffled curse, and somewhere in the back of the house Merlin heard a faint “Goodness me!”

It took a moment for Merlin to place the frantic ringing sound outside, but as soon as he did, the first horrifying thought to enter his sleep-befuddled mind was _fire._ That was, after all, what that little bell on the gate was supposed to be used for, though Merlin had never heard it rung for that dread purpose before. He was accustomed to neighbors yanking on it for luck on their way out of the gate, or giving it a playful ring on their way back in as a sort of bigger and brighter _hullo there!_

Henry poked his round head out from behind the drape, his wide-eyed face barely visible in the gloom. “Is something the matter?”

“Stay there,” Will said, making for the door.

No sooner had he and Merlin skidded outside than the clanging of the bell abruptly ceased, to be replaced by an eerie silence. Up and down the street, other doors were swinging open, revealing worried adult faces and, in some cases, excited children, who were too young to recognize that there was any cause for alarm. Directly across the street, Gilbert stood blinking confusedly in his icicle-encrusted threshold, yellow curls sticking up every which way and a firehook dangling from his hand, though he looked baffled at not seeing anyplace where he might put it to use. 

Merlin and Will jogged down the street in the direction of the north gate, where they could see a little crowd forming. The milling silhouettes resolved into familiar shapes as they approached, a clutch of neighbors buzzing anxiously in a half-circle, clad only in their sleep things. Adeliz, her parents, and every single one of her siblings seemed to have come racing down the road with half-frozen buckets of water in hand (right down to baby Mirabel, who appeared to have escaped the house and gone running after them with a little drinking cup) but there was no fire to douse. Instead, the crowd clustered around Ellinor and Audrey, each whom had offered a bracing arm to two unfamiliar women - townsfolk, by the look of their clothes - one older and one younger, both with black hair and very dark brown skin, and both of whom were breathing hard and speaking very fast, their words tangled together as they offered a jumble of frantic apologies. 

“ - _so_ sorry, we’re so sorry to wake all of you, we never would have done but - ”

“ - didn’t even think, I just saw the gate and ran in - ”

“ - I grabbed that little bell and I hung on it, I’m terribly sorry - I just thought it might frighten them off - ”

“Must have done, Matthew!” Ellinor’s father called from beyond the gate. “I don't see anyone here!”

Ellinor tossed an exasperated look at her mother. “Get in here before someone takes your head off, Da!”

Frery grumbled a bit, but retreated within the boundaries of the village. Margoret came running up behind all of them with a bundle of blankets, her own parents hurrying close behind. Her father, torch in hand, set to lighting the streetside braziers.

“I’m so sorry,” the woman on Ellinor’s arm said again. “Making all this racket, and us not knowing any of you or anything - ” 

Ellinor patted her arm. “Don’t think on it,” she reassured the woman. “It’s nothing to worry about.” She tipped her chin at Quinn, who had come trotting up behind Margoret and his parents. “You’ve got lazylegs there out of bed on time for his morning round, that’s all.”

Quinn squawked in protest, but the woman at Ellinor's side managed a wobbly smile.

“It’s awfully late,” Frery said, frowning at the dark unknown beyond the gate. “What were you two thinking, wandering about at this hour?”

“We weren’t _wandering about_ ,” the younger woman said, faintly indignant. “That’s just it. They came for us while we were camped for the night, sleeping and everything. We were just on our way up to Pedders Hope from Engerd; we’ve made this trek a hundred times before and never had a problem.”

Ellinor scowled at her father. “What if they _were_ wandering about, Da? It’s not their fault some beastly fellow with a knife came crashing in to rob them - ”

“No, of course it isn’t,” Matthew said. To the women, he added, “I’m glad you’re all right. You were right to ring that bell.” He turned to Margoret’s father. “Let’s light the south side as well, Miles. I’d rather not have anyone else thinking to pay us a visit tonight.”

A gentle hand encircled Merlin’s arm. “What’s happened?” his mother asked quietly, while Matthew turned to speak with their new guests.

“Somebody else got robbed on the road,” Merlin replied, his low voice joining a ripple of murmurs spreading through the crowd.

“Not on the road, even,” Will said. “Sleeping.”

“Well, traveling, anyhow.”

Hunith watched as the two women accepted Margoret’s blankets with profuse _thank-you_ ’s. Adeliz appeared to notice Mirabel for the first time and scooped her little sister onto her hips, confiscating Mirabel’s firefighting cup with an exasperated sigh and offering it to their visitors as a drink.

Matthew slipped through the crowd to where Merlin and his mother were standing. “Hunith, I hate to put you out - ”

“It’s all right,” she said before he could finish, giving Merlin’s arm a little squeeze. “I’m happy to have them. So long as William here doesn’t mind keeping Merlin a little longer.”

Will gave her a lopsided smile. “I don’t know, ma’m. He’s dreadful messy.”

Hunith turned back to Matthew. “Something’s got to be done,” she said quietly. “It’s never been like this before.”

“I know.” Matthew rubbed the back of his neck, watching Audrey and Ellinor chivvy their two guests out of the crowd. “We’ll send someone up to the manor tomorrow. See what the bailiff has to say.”

“I can tell him exactly what the bailiff’s going to say,” Will muttered to Merlin, after Matthew and Hunith had left to escort their visitors away. “Starts with ‘bugger,’ ends with ‘off.’”

Merlin nodded. The crowd around them began to disperse, shivering and covering their yawns. “I suppose he feels he has to try, though.”

Will shook his head, turning back toward his own house. Merlin followed him. Glancing down, he noticed for the first time that Will was carrying a plank of half-hewn wood in one hand. 

Merlin smothered a laugh. “What were you going to do with that thing?”

Will rolled his eyes. “Oh, bugger off, Merlin. I was half asleep, wasn’t I?”

“You do know you own an actual sword?”

“For all the good it does me,” Will muttered. “Come off it, Merlin, I don’t know how to use that thing.”

“It’s a hunk of metal with a point on the end! It explains itself.”

“What stopped _you_ grabbing it, then?”

“You won’t even let me use your drawknife!”

“Too right I won’t.” 

They stopped outside Will’s door. Will squinted up at the moon, which had dropped low over the western ridge of the valley and would soon vanish altogether.

“I’m not going back to bed,” Will decided. “It’ll be light in an hour, anyhow - I’ll just do my round and then head out to Euen’s. I said I’d go over and see him about finishing Henry’s cart.”

Merlin glanced back down the street, at the gateposts and the wood beyond. “Maybe I ought to come with you,” he said uncertainly.

Will shook his head. “It’s not three miles, Merlin. It won’t take a couple of hours. And nobody’s going to bother me; I haven’t got anything worth stealing, have I?”

Merlin pointed at Will’s stick. “Are you going to take that with you? Or do you want the real sword this time?”

Will might have claimed that he didn’t know how to swing a weapon, but the plank of wood that rapped Merlin across the ankles stung ferociously nonetheless.

***

Merlin took Henry around on all of his chores that day, truncated though those chores might have been. No one was eager to go tramping around the woods after the events of the previous night, so firewood-gathering and hurdle-making were temporarily put aside in favor of indoor work. Merlin and Henry spent most of the day at Hunith’s cottage, where, after some trial and error, it was determined that Henry would be most helpful (and least dangerous) assisting Hunith with her sewing, given that he was a dab hand with a needle - “just like sewing bindings, lad!” - and, more importantly, he could keep Hunith, Merlin, and their two newest guests entertained with his lively chatter. 

At one point, he became so animated that he accidentally kicked the handmill Merlin was using to grind flour, and nearly stabbed himself in his flurry to apologize. “Oh! I’m sorry, lad! Have I made a mess?”

The stone contraption had not so much as budged; Merlin was more worried about Henry’s toes. Merlin exchanged surreptitious grins with the older of the two women from last night, who had been feeding unmilled grain into the center of the quern for Merlin to grind and whose name, it had turned out, was Merewyn, which she and Merlin had had a little chuckle about, when Hunith had introduced them. 

“You’re all right, Henry,” Merlin said. “No harm done.”

Merewyn clucked her tongue and scooted the quern just a little to the left, away from Henry’s feet. “Just like my daughter,” she sighed to Merlin. “Hands and feet everywhere.”

Jesmaine, the younger woman, made a noise of protest. “Mum!”

“Not you, love; Imanie.”

“Oh, well, if it’s Imanie, then yes.” 

Merlin went back to spinning the handmill. Their group had already heard all about Imanie, and Imanie’s new baby up in Pedders Hope, and how Merewyn had always said that Pedders Hope was much too far from Engerd, but Imanie had said it most certainly was not, and she had gone to live there anyhow, and now look what had happened when they came up to visit her, robbed of everything but their clothes, the lot of them. But this had all been delivered in such affectionate, good-natured tones that Merlin felt very certain that Imanie’s mother and sister were both madly in love with her and would have traveled much greater distances to see her, knife-wielding maniacs and all.

“You said you’ve just the one?” Merewyn asked Hunith. 

“Yes,” Hunith said, smiling at Merlin. “Just this one. But he’s trouble enough for three, I think.”

“Impossible!” Merewyn fed another handful of grain into the quern. “And here I thought he was a clever, fetching young lad.”

“I am,” Merlin said, and Henry and Merewyn chortled. 

They passed a cheerful, congenial afternoon in that fashion, working and chatting and occasionally relocating breakables out of Henry’s reach. Merlin could not remember the last time he had been surrounded by so many people who did not avoid his eyes when he looked at them, or hesitate to answer him when he spoke. It was a very odd feeling. None of their guests would have had any reason to give him funny looks, of course, strangers that they were, but Merlin was so accustomed to the village’s at best precarious opinion of him that spending an entire day in the presence of three perfectly lovely, unsuspicious individuals was altogether unbalancing. 

The entire company elected to relocate to the motehall after supper, where it seemed the rest of the village had had exactly the same idea. Merlin supposed everyone must have been nervous after last night, which made the outbuilding exceptionally crowded and loud, but Merlin and his company staked out a little cluster of benches comfortably close to the fire and allowed Henry to drive the conversation, which attracted more than a few neighbors to their circle - it was rare for far-flung gossip and political news to fall right into their laps, and people were eager to catch up on the latest goings-on.

Will did not reappear until the sun had nearly gone down. A dusting of snow had started pattering against the shutters by the time he showed up, and his entrance prompted a number of shouts for him to close the door and “put wood in the hole, lad!” Will declined to respond to these, and began climbing across a number of people to reach Merlin’s bench, ignoring a new chorus of vociferous protests on his way, though he did once plant a hand on Rory’s head and natter back, “If you weren’t taking up so much room with your great bloody biceps - !”

“You’ve been ages,” Merlin remarked, as Will finally squeezed onto the bench next to him. “I was about to send someone out looking for you.”

Will unwound a ratty old scarf from his neck. “Euen thinks everything’s a social call,” he grumbled. “Says I don’t come to visit nearly as often as my da.” 

Merlin watched Will yank off his mittens and flex stiffened fingers. “Do you?”

“No, of course not.” Will tugged his hat off as well, his hair flattened into a sweaty mess. “He lives on that tiny deer track in the deepwoods arse end of nowhere - every time I go up there I think I’m about to be baked into a pie. No offense,” he added, shaking melting frost from his hat and onto the floor.

Henry flung his arms around the both of them from behind, thrusting his very round, very happy-looking face in between the two of them. “What’s all this about baking people into pies?”

“Nothing,” Will said repressively. “Listen, mate, I’ve just been to see Euen about your cart. He’ll come down tomorrow and finish the last bit with me.”

Henry beamed at him. “Oh, that’s wonderful, lad. Just wonderful!”

“But I had a think on my way back here - ”

Will was interrupted by a group of neighbors beckoning Henry over with boisterous cries and vigorous arm-waving. Henry waved back, clipping Merlin on the ear. “Yes - oh, I’m sorry, but I just - these fellows have been teaching me the most clever little ditty; I wish I could write it down - this is a _splendid_ little gathering you have here, do you do this every day?” 

He vanished before they could even think about answering his question, bounding back over to his new group of possibly inebriated acquaintances, who welcomed him back with high-spirited cheers. 

Will stared after him. “Barking. He’s barking.”

“I like him.”

“You would.” Will watched as the knot of Henry’s new friends embarked on a round of toasting each other’s health. “Anyhow, listen - I was about to say - I don’t think Henry ought to leave tomorrow.”

“No?” Merlin was surprised to hear Will say that. “I thought you’d be pleased to be shut of him.”

“Well, yeah, but Euen had some funny things to say to me while I was up there.” Will frowned. “Just - odd things. He’s seen some funny folk skulking around this month. Some of the livestock up that way have gone missing. He said he thought he heard someone creeping about his barn last night, and his family kept mentioning some rough types on horseback going up and down the King’s Road where it crosses the Deorgeat. Euen’s neighbor went up that way two days ago - said someone stopped him and asked him to pay a toll.”

“There isn’t any toll on the Deorgeat.”

“No,” Will said. “There isn’t. Not a legitimate one, anyhow. But I don’t expect this was a very legitimate fellow, if you follow me.” 

Merlin digested that for a while, chewing on his lip. A few packed benches over, Henry was searching frantically through his pockets for a spare bit of parchment as his cluster of companions sang him disjointed snatches of music - work medleys, first, then drinking songs. Merlin thought he caught the last line of “The Serpent King and His Sad Pin” and glanced around for his mother, hoping she was well out of earshot. “What do you suppose he ought to do, then?”

“Turn around and go home,” Will said frankly. “But he won’t do that, probably, so I suppose he ought to just wait and leave with the rest of this lot.” Will gestured at their other visitors - the arkwright and the clothier who had arrived days ago, and Merewyn and Jesmaine. “Those two blokes are going to Frostfaire as well, and Pedders Hope’s is on their way. They’re not leaving til Friday next, but it’d be better if they all went together.”

“And then what? It’s as easy to rob two wagons as one.”

“Aye so, but at least it spreads the loot a little. Highwaymen on horseback can only carry so much. Everyone will have a bit more left over than if they were traveling alone, at least.”

Merlin shook his head, not quite satisfied with that answer but unable to come up with a better solution. Across the room, Merewyn joined in on the singing group’s merry-making, while Jesmaine watched woefully through her fingers. “It wasn’t like this last year, was it?” Merlin asked, frowning. “The Road’s always a nightmare come Midwinter Market, but nobody’s ever gotten chased out of the woods at knifepoint before, I don’t think.”

Will lowered his voice. “No, and Euen and I were just talking about that today. He said he’s had some really odd folk poking around up there. People skulking around after dark. Funny-looking wagons going up and down the road - cage-carts, like. People asking him weird questions. He didn’t think any of them were from round here.”

“So?”

Will shook his head. “So...” He hesitated a moment. “Listen, Merlin - this treaty we’ve just signed with the nutter next door - ”

Whatever insights Will had to offer about Cenred’s newfound love for the Pendragons would have to wait, however, as Henry’s cluster of friends broke out into a deafening rendition of “The Serpent King and His Sad Pin,” prompting most of the other attendees in the hall to join in a rousing sing-along which, Merlin winced to acknowledge, his mother could not possibly help but hear, in all its bawdy detail:

 _There once was a king up at court  
_ _Whose prick was incredibly short  
_ _When he got into bed,  
_ _His poor lady said  
_ _This isn’t a prick; it’s a wart!_

The entire hall belted the last bit in unison and dissolved into shouts of laughter. Merlin spared a brief moment of concern for what Henry would think, but he needn’t have worried - the stationer was laughing harder than anyone else, with the possible exception of Nigel, who had been copiously consuming Estrid’s latest brew and would have gone to pieces at the mere suggestion of anything vaguely off-color, never mind an out-and-out description of the high king’s trouser needle. Ellinor and her mother launched into the next verse as bawdily as anyone, and even Margoret covered a tiny smile when she thought no one was looking. 

Will, who was normally extremely in favor of anything addressing the royals in this vein, and who would have happily sung along to something twice as obscene, was still wearing his closed expression, a tight, heavy-thinking look that had been a little more in evidence of late, and a little more difficult for Merlin to banish with his usual arsenal of optimism, sportive teasing, and, all else failing, outright affection, which in the past had always been enough to earn him at least a slightly grumpy _bugger off, Merlin, you ninny._

Merlin settled for poking Will in the side of the head this time, and absorbed Will's subsequent narrowed eyes without resentment. “I’ll talk to him,” Merlin said. “He won’t mind staying another couple of days. After that, well....”

They both watched as Nigel smacked his cup against Henry’s, sloshing Estrid’s hard work over the sides of their mugs and inadvertently mixing their drinks. 

“After that, he’ll have to take his chances,” Will decided. “Just like the rest of us.”

***

Merlin’s sleep that night was restless. 

He dreamt that he finally took his chance to explore Henry’s treasure trove of books, only to find that they were written in a language he did not understand. Will stood over him with folded arms and a cross look on his face, telling him they were supposed to have left for Midwinter Market days ago, and how was he supposed to buy his stolen goats back if he didn’t bring his wares up to Frostfaire, and it wasn't like Merlin couldn’t read that rubbish, anyway, so why was he trying?

“I can read it,” Merlin said, desperately, certain that he could, if he tried harder - if he could just - unfocus his eyes and not think about it, in much the same way that his dream-self had often discovered that he could breathe underwater, if he was careful not to inhale too much too quickly. 

When Merlin finally woke in the grey pre-dawn, it was to the crunching sound of Will trying to open the front door, which had been wedged shut overnight by a surprisingly deep accumulation of snow. Merlin got up to lend a hand, and they eventually managed to squeeze outside and tramp off to take care of their respective stock, leaving behind a bundled-up houseguest who had endearingly, if unnecessarily, offered once again to come along and “help” with the morning round, though ultimately, the snowfall was such that Henry had required very little convincing to stay inside by the fire, and by the time Merlin and Will returned to the house, numb and soggy from the knees down, Henry had put on a sizzling griddle of eggs (he’d collected them without dropping a single one, he'd reported proudly), brown bread, cheese that Will had put out for all of them last night, and some sort of smoked meat from his own packs. 

There were several hours to go before anyone in Ealdor would normally have taken their first meal of the day, but Will and Merlin sat down to eat without complaint, exchanging only slightly bemused looks with each other. Henry was too pleased with his own initiative for them to disabuse him of his odd, regional notions about “breakfast.”

It was a slow, lazy sort of day. There was still plenty of work to keep them busy, though most it could be done inside. Merlin’s mother had sent him home from his morning round with a sack of wool to be carded, which was a chore Merlin usually liked for its repetitive, almost meditative motions, even if it did leave him with sore wrists and shoulders. Will sequestered himself in the working half of the house, chiseling mortise holes into a set of planks Merlin did not remember seeing the other day, though when he asked what Will was making, he received the reply “more sticks to thump you with” and decided that it would be best to let Will work without further interruptions, going forward.

Henry was surprisingly willing to let both of them get on with their jobs. Perhaps he had overexerted himself the night before, or perhaps it was just the cocoon-like effect of the snow outside, but in either case, he simply sat by the fire with a blanket snugged around his knees, happy as a hen in its nest, humming snatches of tuneless melodies to himself and, later on in the day, writing sporadically in a little journal he had produced from one of his bags.

Merlin, for his part, found it exceedingly difficult to focus on his work once that little book came out. Carding wool was a task well-suited to an inveterate daydreamer like himself, but the attraction posed by yet another textual curiosity was a much more insistent tug on his attention than idle wonderings about what things might look like from the top of the White Mountain or where the Ea went after it wound its way over the border. He stared fixedly at the journal, watching Henry's quill fly over the pages. Merlin had been ogling Henry’s books for the better part of two nights now, wondering what was inside them, and yet he had never even considered the possibility that some of Henry’s crates might contain _empty_ books waiting for people to fill them with their own thoughts. No one in Ealdor would have had any use for such a thing, or been able to afford it if they had, and if Merlin were really being honest, he knew that he himself didn’t have any use for such a thing either, but that didn’t make the little book less appealing. 

It was not the sort of oaken-board manuscript one would expect to find chained to a shelf in the libraries of the wealthy. Rather, it had a flexible leather binding, which was soft and bendable enough to be stuffed in a deep pocket or folded over on itself. Both the front and back covers were undecorated, and the spine bore no etchings, tooling, or embossure. It had no clasps or locking mechanisms, either, and was held closed only with a loop of cord dangling from the front flap. It was, in short, perfectly simple, and not particularly eye-catching, but Merlin thought it was the second most wonderful thing he had ever seen, after the stack of books he had been staring at for the last two nights.

Will coughed a bit louder than Merlin felt was necessary, directing a pointed look at Merlin’s hands. Merlin looked down. He had been carding the same bit of wool in the same direction for so long that the fibers were coming loose from his brushes and floating away. He clapped the carding paddles together hurriedly and stowed them down in his lap.

Will considered Merlin for a moment, tapping his mortising chisel absently against his knee. 

“So,” Will said, after a minute, looking over at Henry, “are you a writer then, too, mate? Only I thought stationers just put books together and sold them.”

Henry’s hand flew to his chest. “Oh my,” he said, sounding flattered. “Oh dear, oh no, not me. These are just my little notes.” He patted his notebook affectionately. “I mean to say - well, _someday_ , perhaps - though it’s not an ambition of mine, certainly, but who knows; you never can tell. I like to keep my little catalogues; it helps me remember all sorts of interesting things.”

“What sort of things?” Will asked.

Merlin eyed him curiously. Will had never shown an ounce of interest in any of Henry’s books before.

“Well, like this here.” Henry tapped something in his notebook. “Just what I was setting down a moment ago - I met an absolutely splendid woman the other night who taught me a recipe for a spiced honey wine - she swore it would blast the nose right off my face; and you know I had to set that down - I’m partial enough to my nose, obviously, but with an endorsement like that!” He circled the recipe in his notebook for good measure, sweeping his quill around in a flourish. “You learn so many _interesting_ things out on the road,” he said happily. “And anyway, that’s how all travelogues get started, you know, with just a bit of notes, or somebody’s old diary that someone found in his back pocket after he dropped down dead in a bog somewhere.” He said this in a very matter-of-fact way. “Very popular right now, travelogues. We’re getting more commissions for those than anything.” Henry waved vaguely in the direction of the door. “And of course you know demand’s only going to go up, with the border opening up and all. Lettered folk on either end are going to want to know what’s on the other side.”

Will turned his mortising chisel over in his fingers, looking from Henry to Merlin and back again. “Merlin’s got his letters. Haven’t you, Merlin?”

Merlin choked on a stray wool fiber. “I - ”

Henry jolted up. “ _Have_ you?” he blurted, for all the world as excited as if he had just been pronounced king at Carr Naeddran. “Goodness gracious me, why on earth didn’t you say anything? Where did you learn?”

Merlin forced himself to rip his glare away from Will’s wicked smirk and meet Henry’s delighted eyes instead. “My mother taught me.”

“ _Did_ she? That’s extraordinary! And where did she learn?”

“I - ” Merlin realized suddenly that he had no idea where his mother had learned her letters, and felt odd that he had never thought to ask her. “I don’t know. I’ve never asked.”

Henry waved a hand through the air as if he were sweeping away fibers from Merlin’s wool-carding mishap. “No matter, my lad, no matter. But here I’ve been these past three days, yammering on at you like such a silly fellow; you must think I’m ridiculous!” He leaned forward. “Do you read much, then?”

Merlin laughed out loud. “I’ve never touched a book in my life.”

“But he’d like to,” Will put in. “Wouldn’t you, Merlin?”

What Merlin would really like to do was borrow one of Will’s “sticks to thump you with” and turn its thumping powers back upon its maker, but Henry clapped Merlin on the shoulder before this plan could be put into action. “Of course you would!” Henry exclaimed, beaming. “I don’t know why I haven’t had one out before now; it’s very unlike me; only I’ve been having such a splendid time with you fellows, I didn’t even think of it.” He hurried over to his piles of chests and levered open a few lids, stroking his dark beard thoughtfully. “Let’s see...hm.” He looked at Merlin. “What are you interested in, lad?”

Merlin opened his mouth, but nothing came out. _Everything_ , he wanted to say.

He didn’t care what Henry put in front of him - whether it was one of those very popular travelogues he'd mentioned, or a guide to medicinal plants of the Upper Mickledale, or a list of Mercian monarchs from Wulfhere to Wigstan - he wanted to know all of it. He didn’t understand how anyone could look at the overflowing pile of potentially fascinating knowledge literally spilling across the floor in front of him and not be bowled over by possibility.

Merlin tried valiantly to come up with some kind of reply, but only succeeded at producing a sort of croak, which may have been an attempt at “erm…” but sounded more like a rooster bidding its final farewells to the world.

Will sighed and clapped his chisel down on the bench next to him. “He likes grand adventures, and dusty old legends, and any sort of histories, but especially ones that have got interesting people in them. And things about nature, like what kind of odd animals they’ve got in the sea and why pine trees don’t drop their needles and why geese won’t stay wet, or anything that’ll explain where dragonflies go in the winter. And also daft romances, and the sort of thing that will tell you what a cloth merchant on Mora eats for supper. And he’s always looking up at the sky like he’s waiting for something to fall out of it, so if you’ve got anything about stars - ”

“I do _not_ like all that,” Merlin sputtered.

“You like everything,” Will shot back. Then, to Henry: “Let him see whatever’s on top of that pile there. It doesn’t matter what it is, honest.”

Henry hmm’ed and hummed for another minute, bending from one stack to the next with a finger to his lips. Then he seemed to take Will’s advice and untied the twine from a stack of thicker volumes, which wobbled precariously at his touch. He picked up the topmost book and held it out to Merlin. “Hands clean, lad?”

Automatically, Merlin leapt to his feet and held out his palms for inspection. It felt rather like his mother were asking him to prove that he’d washed up before supper, but Merlin could not bother to be embarrassed just then. Henry smiled at him. “Here you are, then.”

He passed the book into Merlin’s waiting hands. The front and back covers fell heavy across Merlin’s forearms, the book's studded corners reaching nearly to the crooks of his elbows. The leather was warm where it had lain facing the fire, and the spine creaked as the book yawned wider in his arms. Merlin looked down for the first time at the dense, bold strokes of a title page, the border of which was a stylized approximation of rolling waves rendered in delicate blue and white inks.

He read the title carefully. _The Curious Calamities and Extraordinarie Escapades of Maister Walbert Teye, being an Acounte of his First Journei to the Silver Sea (2nd ed)._

Merlin’s excitement churned in a reasonable approximation of the scribe’s attempt to illustrate choppy water. “Where is that?” he heard himself asking, though he could not actually tear his eyes away from the page in front of him, which was part of a _book_ , which was in his _hands_ , which he thought he might actually get to _read_. “The Silver Sea.”

Henry clapped him heartily on the shoulder. “I suppose you’d best read up on it and find out, hadn’t you?” 

Merlin stared the page in front of him, everything else fading away. It was silly to go this delightfully dizzy over a stack of sheepskin; he didn’t know what sort of expression was on his face. He was sure it was something Will would laugh about later. Maybe Will was having a laugh already; Merlin didn’t know. He didn’t care.

He sat down, settling the book gingerly on his lap, and placed one finger at the corner of the first leaf, just over a little brown boat bobbing on the blue swirls of water. The parchment whispered against itself as he flipped the page over and dove into the painstakingly-inked waters bordering the first oversized letter:

_In the second spring of the seventh yere of the regne of King Osric the Openhanded, our noble creue seilede from the river Fifeldor on the thertieth of April with two shippes twinne, the one called the Sea Starre and the other the Hwalfin, in pursuit of his lordshipe the Prince Oswine Osricson, who on the six and twentieth of that same month had also seilede, in serche of the Stag of the Silver Sea, against the wishes of his father the King._

***

A few minutes later, or perhaps a few hours, a wry voice yanked Merlin back to reality.

“This is why your mother thinks you’re going to get caught, you know.”

Merlin startled up from his book. He had been lying on his belly in his sleeping pallet, propped up on his elbows, with _Curious Calamities_ open in front of him. The dim room around him swam into focus, but his surroundings seemed jarringly unfamiliar, if he had been dragged out of an extremely engrossing dream. “What?”

Will pointed to the candle on the floor by Merlin’s elbow. It had melted down to a shallow puddle of liquid wax, but it was still glowing, cradling a globe of soft blue light which spun lazily in place, illuminating the book next to it.

Merlin slapped his hand over it immediately, spilling wax onto the floor and plunging the room into gloom.

He listened. Henry’s snores were plainly audible through the curtain, but Merlin had not even noticed them a moment ago, for all that they rattled the crockery on Will’s table. Nor had he noticed how late it was, or how low the fire had burned. He had not even noticed that Henry had ever gone to bed in the first place.

He glanced at the window slit, but could make no guess as to the hour. 

“He’s been asleep for ages,” Will said. He was sitting on the floor opposite the banked fire, surprisingly awake, his rock on his lap and a woolen blanket tangled round his legs. He looked like he might have been working on some project or another, at one point - his pocketknife was out and his knees were sprinkled with wood shavings - but right now he appeared to be simply sitting there, watching Merlin read.

Merlin couldn’t imagine it was a particularly gripping endeavour. “See anything interesting?”

Will shrugged. “You’ve had your tongue poking out," he said. "What’s the matter, Merlin? Too many big words for you?”

Merlin resisted the altogether immature urge to actually stick out his tongue. “No.”

“You sure? You've got cross-eyes.”

“Have not.”

“Have too.”

Merlin blinked at the page in front of him, which was a little blurry. 

Maybe he did. 

“It’s these wee little letters,” he confessed. “This fellow’s writing is all crunched together.” Merlin rubbed his eyes, which were dry and scratchy, as if he'd spent the last few hours haymaking. “If I am ever so wealthy as to commission a book, the first thing I'm going to do is specify proper spacing.”

“If you’re ever so wealthy as to commission a book, the first thing you ought to do is buy me a proper plow beast, instead of wasting your money on nonsense.”

“I think I can manage two things at once,” Merlin said. “Do you want oxen or horses?”

“Both,” Will said. “And you can replace my goats, while you’re at it. And then maybe build me a little byre to keep them in. And I’ll take a new set of block planes, if you can get them.”

Merlin smiled. “Anything else you’d like me to purchase for you, your majesty?”

Will patted the stone in his lap. “You’ve already got me a rock. Can’t ask for much more, Merlin.” He rolled his wrists in a bone-popping stretch and laid the pocket knife aside. “How’s that book, then?”

“You actually want to know?”

“Not really. But you’ve been mooning over it like a whole barrel of apples, so I thought I ought to ask.”

“I have not been _mooning_ over it.”

“You skipped supper.”

“I never - ” But when Merlin looked over, he saw that his bowl was still half full. “Oh. Well.”

“Oh,” Will repeated. His mouth quirked up in a half-smile. “You’ve been dreaming, Merlin.”

“No,” Merlin said. “I just - I forgot I was here, I suppose.” 

It had been nice, for a little while - to be somewhere else. Merlin felt a little funny saying that, though. He decided maybe he would keep it to himself.

“I just got caught up,” he said instead. “It’s brilliant. It’s the most interesting thing I’ve ever seen, or heard about, or anything.”

Will raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Oh, lor, Merlin…”

“What?” Merlin challenged. “It is. It’s fantastic.”

“You’re off your nut.”

“No, I’m not! This is amazing, you can learn all sorts of things if you just bother to have a little look. I’ve already found out so much that I didn’t know, like - well, look here, now, do you know that this Silver Sea isn’t a sea at all?

“No.”

“Do you care?”

“Not especially.”

“Well, it isn’t even water. Or it is, but not on top, anyhow; it’s frozen over like the sheepwash in winter, only it’s like that every day of the year, and it’s bigger than this land and Tirmaiur put together. And things _live_ on it, and under it - great white bears and big, sort of...shaggy deer, and birds and things. And all the fish and seals have got horns.”

“No, they haven’t.”

“Yes, they have. And it says here these people were stranded there for five months and the sun never came up, not once.”

“That’s rubbish.”

“It says so right here!”

“Some fellow with a fancy quill said so.” Will nodded skeptically in the direction of the book’s cover. “How do you know he isn’t talking nonsense, just to make silly folk like you buy his book?”

“Silly folk like me can’t afford his book,” Merlin replied mournfully. He shifted on his pallet, trying to find a more comfortable position. He had been lying propped up on his elbows for so long that his back was cramping up. “But I suppose you’re right. I’d have to go north myself and see.”

“North where?”

“A long ways, I think.” The author had only ever called it Farthest North, as if Merlin was supposed to know where that was.

“Mercia?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Tregor?”

“Farther than that, I think.” He looked down at the page he’d abandoned, which displayed a silver field of ice under a night sky. The sky was streaked with an abundance of unusual colors, which would have looked like a colorist’s error, had it not been for the accompanying text, reading simply: _Dragon’s Breath._

Merlin pushed himself further up onto his elbows and looked expectantly at Will. “What do you say? Fancy an expedition?”

Will wrapped his arms around the warming rock and snugged himself further down against Henry’s chest of books. “Why not? Can’t be much colder than here, can it?”

Merlin flipped back a few pages. “I don’t know about that. This fellow here said he was trying to warm his feet by the fire and his socks burnt away before he even started to feel his toes.”

“Right,” Will said. “Never mind. Let’s not go there, then.”

“You’ve no sense of adventure at all, you know.” 

Will leaned his head back against the wooden chest, closing his eyes. “At least I’ve still got my socks.”

Merlin tapped the candleholder with his fingers, the little ball of unnatural light flaring back into existence. “That’s all right,” he said. “I’ll go by myself. I can’t ask just anybody to go running round the wilderness with me, proving the existence of horned fish.” He flipped the page over, searching for where he had left off. “Some folk just haven’t got the _constitutions_ for it.”

Will cracked one eye at Merlin. Merlin ducked his head to hide a smile, the little candle-ball of light whirling playfully off to one side. Will would put him on his back in a snowbank for that tomorrow, probably. 

Tonight, though, all Will did was roll one of his blankets into a lumpy pillow. “Are you going to bed or what?”

Merlin looked at the book in front of him. “No,” he said. “I don’t think so. I’m reading.”

He had never used that particular sentence before in his life. He liked how it sounded.

“I’m reading,” he said again, just for the fun of it. 

“I heard you the first time,” Will yawned, settling onto his pallet. “Saw your book.”

“It’s not my book,” Merlin reminded him. Reminded himself. “I do like it sort of a lot, though.”

Will sighed from somewhere under his covers. “Merlin, you’re barmy.”

Merlin rested his chin on his folded arms and returned his gaze to the wall of tiny text. Henry’s snores droned away behind the curtain, and the makeshift lamp bobbed companionably at Merlin's elbow.

_What bifell us there mine gentil reader will scarsely believe..._

***

Will was nowhere to be found when Merlin awoke the next morning, but the fire had been built up to a crackling blaze, beating back the worst of the chill. Henry offered Merlin a bowl of his signature “breakfast,” but Merlin left most of it untouched, instead devouring several more pages of _Curious Calamities_ , only pausing when the sun poked in through the window and Merlin realized he had left his morning round far too late. He piled on as many layers of his own clothing as could, adding a few things of Will’s for good measure, then ducked outside, resolving to make this the quickest feeding and turn-out his animals had ever seen so he could be back in front of his book as soon as possible.

It took him just over an hour to do what needed doing, and as soon as the last animal had been fed and watered, Merlin scooted across the yard of his cott, intending to race back to Will’s. But the door to his own house opened before he had gotten out of sight, interrupting his hasty and slightly surreptitious exit.

“Merlin!” Jesmaine poked her head around the door. “Good morning! Are you coming in?”

“Er - ” He hesitated, but the book loomed large in his mind. “No, I’m sorry. I’ve got to get back, erm - got some things to do -”

“That’s all right, hang on - ” She disappeared behind the door, then returned with a large, puffy sack in her arms. “Your mother says to take this with you!”

“Oh - no, don’t come out here, it’s all wet - ” 

She slung it in his direction, lobbing it high over the snow. It landed in Merlin's arms with a _whumph_ , lumpy like a pillow and smelling strongly of sheep.

“She says you can bring back the first bag as soon as you’ve finished with it!”

Merlin waved at Jesmaine and hurried away, feeling guilty. He had not technically even finished carding the first sack of wool from yesterday, and he did not really want to finish any more of it today, given that there were only a woefully limited number of days remaining for him to read as many of Henry’s books as he could. But he couldn’t just ignore his mother - either he would have to learn how to multi-task and give the books just half of his attention, or the wool would just have to card itself.

Merlin was not exactly sure how he would make that happen, but he felt certain that he could, if he tried. Things happened around him all the time, when he wanted them to, and sometimes when he didn’t want them to - he would just have to sit down and think about it.

He was thinking about it so hard, in fact, that he slipped once on the way back, skidding across an icy slick where Gilbert’s hogs had upended their water trough, but he managed keep the sack of wool from bursting open and evacuating its contents all over the street. When he finally picked his careful way over the threshold of Will’s house, he was ready never to set foot outside again, and he stomped sticky clumps of snow off his boots, dropping the woolsack against the wall as he pulled off his hat and mittens.

Will must have returned while Merlin had been out, because he and Henry were sitting at the table, Will straddling one bench like he’d sat down only for a minute and then forgotten to get up again, and Henry in his layers upon layers of cloaking on the opposite side, munching another serving of breakfast as he scrutinized a page in the notebook which lay open between them. 

“Now listen,” Will said. “I’ve had a chat with the other fellows and they think they know where they’re going, but you ought to take this with you and follow it to the letter, all right? You can’t go wandering off into the Aedreweg just because someone said something about the Broken Glass Plunge Pool in Niwedene, or, you know - some other thing you thought sounded interesting - ”

Henry snatched up his quill and hovered it above the journal. “Broken Glass...what, you said? Where exactly hereabouts would you say...?”

Will gave Merlin a hopeless look. “No, I said you’re _not_ to go there. You’re not to go anywhere except here - ” he stabbed a spot on the journal page with his index finger “ - which is where you were heading in the first place, remember? Frostfaire.”

Merlin peeled out of his coat and slid onto the bench beside Will, taking in the crudely drawn map. “You’ve forgot Firgenbroc.”

Will muttered something under his breath and plucked the quill out of Henry’s hand, adding a squiggly line in the approximate location of the river. He pushed the notebook over to Merlin. “Label this for him, will you?”

Merlin picked up the quill and dipped it into Henry’s inkpot, dutifully adding his unpracticed but painstakingly careful inscription E A L D O R to the dot at the southernmost region of the map.

“Now, Narrow Neck is over here,” Will continued to Henry, pointing, “but you’re not going to go that way, because you’ve already scuppered your cart once. You’re going to go with the rest of these fellows up the King’s Road, here - ” Merlin added the letters K I N G S R D along the winding northward line “ - and then cut east through Niwedene after you pass the Aedreweg.” Will prodded the map emphatically, smudging the ink; Merlin swatted his finger away with the feathery end of the quill. “ _Don’t_ go into the Aedreweg. Don’t wander in ‘just a bit further’ to see if the ground is solid. Don’t let the cloth merchant from Engerd tell you it’s actually a shortcut. You’ll get turned around in the fens and never come out again, and that would be really too bad for everyone at Frostfaire waiting on their fancy books, yeah?”

Henry looked like he was not quite convinced that the Aedreweg didn’t sound like a grand adventure, but he waved a hand obligingly. “All right, lad, all right. And we’ll be on the King’s Road for...what is it? Two days?”

“Three,” Will said, looking a little grim around the mouth. “And that’s another thing, Henry - ”

Henry offered Will a dumpling-like pastry from his bowl. Will pushed it back with a sort of restrained politeness. “It’s - look, it’s a little early, mate. Listen - ”

Henry waved it under Will's nose. “Try it, lad; you’ve never had anything like it. That’s a Hedyngham guarantee, I promise.”

Will took it, then passed it to Merlin without giving it so much as a sniff. “Look, Henry, if you’re going up the King’s Road you’ve got to understand a thing or two. Right, Merlin?”

Merlin nodded, focused on the map. He was surreptitiously adding the Broken Glass Plunge Pool to Will’s scribbles. 

“Try a bit of that, lad,” Henry encouraged Merlin in a whisper. “You’ll be glad you did. Trust me; it’s like nothing you’ve ever had before.”

Merlin took a bite of it and immediately choked, his eyes watering. Henry was right - Merlin did not have anything with which he could compare this particular explosion of flavor, but it felt like taking a bite out of the sun. 

He coughed, and the mixture shot straight up into his sinuses, a pulsing burn under his nose. “Agh.”

Henry grinned. “Packs a punch, doesn’t it?”

“That’s _fantastic_ ,” Merlin croaked. “What is it?”

Henry opened his mouth to reply, but Will was scowling at both of them like he wanted to string them up by their ankles. Merlin placed the half-eaten dumpling gingerly in front of him, nudging it closer with a finger. “Try it.”

Will ignored him. “I was _saying_ ,” he continued. “Henry, mate - you’ve got to be careful.” Will pointed to the map, tracing the line from Ealdor to the eastern fork of the King’s Road. “It’s three days to the crossing at Firgenbroc, and there’s hardly anything between here and there. If you run into any other travelers who look decent, you ought to stick with them, and if you come across any homesteads before the sun goes down, you ought to ask if you can kip in the barn. Pay them if you have to.” He gestured to Henry’s piles upon piles of books. “And for the love of Lugh, don’t tell anyone what you’re carting around behind you.”

Henry chuckled. “Goodness, lad, you make it sound as if you expect me to robbed!”

Will stared at him. Then he looked over at Merlin, and then finally back at Henry, as if he were not sure whether Henry was pulling his leg. “I do,” he said blankly. “That’s what I’ve been saying to you. Three days on the King’s Road? You’re going to get nabbed once for sure, probably twice - what would you say, Merlin - ”

“Oh, twice, at least.”

Henry goggled at them. “On the King’s Road?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said, isn’t it?”

“But what about the guard?”

“The what now?”

“The guard, my boy, the guard! It’s the King’s Road, isn’t it? ‘Best traveled, best kept - _no palace rug is better swept_ \- ’”

“I suppose,” said Will dubiously. “Doesn’t stop it having bandits, though.”

“Bandits?” Henry blurted out. It seemed he had never heard something so scandalous in his life. “On the _King’s Road?_ ”

“Well, half the bandits in this country are on the king’s payroll, so I don’t see why not.”

Henry looked to Merlin as if waiting to hear that Will was having him on. Merlin shrugged and exchanged a look with Will, who scrutinized Henry as if the stationer were a heretofore undiscovered life form. “Where _are_ you from?” Will said finally. “You can’t possibly be surprised at this.”

“I - well, I told you, lad, I came up south of the border - it’s my first trip over since the treaty, you know - an...expeditionary visit. For business purposes.”

Merlin and Will exchanged almost reflexive eye rolls. _Camelot_. Of course.

Henry looked between them, uncertain. Will sighed and took the journal back from Merlin, sliding it across the table into Henry’s hands. “Look, just - you just stick to that, and you won’t get lost. You’ll get robbed, probably, still - I mean, definitely you’ll get robbed - but at least you won’t get lost.”

“Oh, dear,” Henry mumbled into his fingers. “I don’t suppose - do you think it’s too much to hope that these... _marauders_ simply won’t have any interest in, you know - literature?”

“I don’t think they’re going to be having a look through - what was it you had last night, Merlin - ”

“ _The Curious Calamities and Extraordinarie Escapades of Maister Walbert Teye -”_

“Yeah, that - anytime soon. But if all your books are dressed up like that one...” Will pointed at a very ostentatious volume studded with gold backing and colored stones, whose cover alone looked like it weighed more than a small sheep.

“They’re not,” Henry assured him. “It’s only some of the commissions done up like that. They’re made to order, you know - if the client asks for fairy dust and pearl inlay, well, that’s what we give them." He gave Will a faint smile. “And charge appropriately, of course - labor and materials, isn’t that how you put it, young man?” Henry pointed to two large chests stacked on top of each other. “But I hate to think - well, it wouldn’t be very good if I were to lose any of those. The general wares would be enough of a loss - but we’ve put rather a lot of money into making that collection specifically. And I can’t imagine our clients would be happy to hear we’ve lost their commissions on the way up." He worried at his lower lip. “It wouldn’t be very good for business, that. Not very good at all. Not exactly a smashing first impression, I have to say.”

“Not so very good for your health, either, I’ll wager,” Will remarked, “depending on what sort of lord you’ve taken these commissions from.”

Merlin kicked him under the table. Henry shook his head woefully. “We’ve never taken commissions north of the border before. In fact, I think we’re the first outfit on the Row to make a go of it; I know Blythe and Skipwyth thought about it a while back, but Skyppy axed it because…” He looked sheepish. “Well, because he thought delivery might be dangerous.”

Will raised his eyebrows. “Should’ve listened to old Skyppy, mate. Sounds like he had his facts together.”

Henry wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Oh, well, Skipwyth’s shrewd enough, I’ll give you that, but his head’s full of nonsense. The things he tried to tell me about this place - and he’s never even been here, has he? But he’s got ridiculous notions about folk north of the border - to hear him talk! You’d think this place were packed with pit vipers, not people.” He waved his journal in the air in an attempt to dry the ink, scattering a numbers of loose pages onto the floor, which Merlin bent down to retrieve. “Oh dear, thank you, lad - and you see? Look how wrong he was!” Henry gestured expansively. “You fine lads, for starters; don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t helped me down off that road. And everyone else we met at that marvelous little to-do the other night - wonderful people! Don’t know when I’ve had more fun! That tall fellow, and his wife - helped with those other two women the other night - ”

“Matthew?”

“Yes!” Henry exclaimed. “Yes, that’s just the man! Never met such a sensible, likeable fellow. Came to introduce himself that first day straight away, you remember, been nothing but welcoming ever since - ”

Will glanced over at Merlin, the corners of his mouth tweaking up. “Matthew’s a good man."

“Oh, without a doubt, without a doubt. Skipwyth can’t hold a candle to him.” Henry sighed. “I’d hate to come back missing half my merchandise just to listen to Skyppy gloat about it. But, ah well!” He plopped the notebook back down on the table with a shrug. “That’s the route, then. I suppose I’ll just have to take my chances.”

“You won’t consider turning back, then?”

“Turning back? I should think not. No, my boy, better to make it to Frostfaire with half my merchandise in hand than none at all.”

Will frowned skeptically. “Unless one of your commissionees has a fit over not getting their book delivered and decides he may as well take it out on the delivery man.”

Henry handwaved this away. “But people must be familiar with the situation here - I’m sure I can talk them round. Full refund and discounted pricing on their next order, that’s the Hedyngham guarantee. It’s not going to be easy on the shop’s money box, I can tell you that, but client satisfaction must come first, especially breaking into a new territory like this.”

Will looked at Merlin as though wishing Merlin would say something to change Henry’s mind, but Merlin did not think he could. Henry seemed silly, on the face of it, with his books and his beaver hat and his odd notions about breakfast, but there was something committed about him. Maybe it was just that he had read one too many adventure stories. But he was on a quest now, it seemed, and even people who had never read a book in their lives could tell you that the hero never turned back halfway into his journey.

“All right, then,” Will said, though he was clearly agreeing against his better judgment. “The rest of them are leaving on Midwinter Eve, so you’ve got a week or so to think on it.”

Merlin started. He stole a glance at the mountain of books he had barely even begun to sift through. A few meager days and they would be gone.

“Fine, lad, all fine.” Henry folded the journal up and surveyed them both with bright, eager eyes. “Now, which of you lads can I lend these willing hands to today?”

Will looked at Merlin. Merlin looked, longingly, at the pile of books.

Will turned slowly back to Henry. Painstakingly, as if it killed him to say it, he answered, “You can come with me.”

“Splendid!” Henry bustled up off the bench, bumping against the table and setting his cup rolling. “Oh - let me just bundle up - ”

Merlin snagged Will’s sleeve as they rose from their seats. “You’re a prince among men,” he murmured in Will’s ear.

Will shrugged him off. “Don’t insult me.”

***

Merlin did not, in fact, card a single strand of wool that day, nor did he figure out how to encourage the carding paddles to do the job without his help. He spent the entirety of the morning and the better half of the afternoon sitting on Will’s bed with _Curious Calamities_ propped up on his knees, only stirring from that position to start supper simmering on the hearth, though he might have let it boil right down to vapor if Henry and Will had not come home when they did.

Henry stumbled over the threshold dripping with sweat, huffing as if he had run all the way from Milchmor to Will’s front door. Will, much more at his ease, ambled in after him, stretching his arms behind his back and looking satisfied with himself. 

Henry made straight for the bed that Merlin had just vacated. 

“What on earth did you have him doing?” Merlin murmured.

Will shrugged. “Little of this, little of that.” He snagged a bowl from the table and ladled a glob of pottage into it. “Henry, mate, are you eating? Come and have a bit of dinner.”

A faint, thready voice floated over to them from the vicinity of the bed. It was mostly incoherent, but Merlin thought he could make out “bit of a lie-down” and a wavery, unconvinced “...marvelous...” before the area behind the curtain fell silent again.

Merlin looked at Will. “Have you killed him?”

Will handed Merlin a bowl of pottage and sat down by the fire. “I took him ice-breaking. Pulled a few sledges over to the pantry pit afterwards.” Will stuffed a spoonful of food into his mouth, then pointed the empty spoon at the sleeping area. “It was a load of lifting and chopping, that's all. He’s knackered.”

Merlin leaned back to peer around the curtain at Henry’s prone form. “It’s a wonder you didn’t have to drag him back on a sledge himself,” he remarked. “I’m surprised he didn’t peg out.”

“So am I,” Will said, chewing contentedly. “But he’s not so bad, really, once you get him going. Doesn’t know a sledge from a shovel, but he never complains.”

“You couldn’t have set him something easier to do, I suppose.”

“He said he wanted to do some real work!” Will's eyes lit upon the two sacks of unfinished wool in the corner, Merlin’s untouched carding paddles lying nearby. “Seems he was the only one, though. Have you lifted a single finger since we left?”

Merlin put up two for him, just because. 

Will smirked. “Let’s go to the motehall,” he said, shoveling down the rest of their lean supper. “I’ve got to drop off that stool I mended. And you can apologize to your mother for doing bugger-all this afternoon.”

“She’s home with our houseguests, I think,” Merlin replied. But he followed Will out of the house anyway, picking up _Curious Calamities_ as he went.

The sun had vanished below the western side of the valley, edging the sky above the ridgeline with lavender. High overhead, the first pinpricks of evening stars began to distinguish themselves, while a pale sliver of moon grinned lopsidedly at them over an unbroken wall of snowcapped trees.

“Did you try to talk Henry round again?” Merlin asked.

Will huffed. “I talked until I was near as out of breath as he is. He doesn’t listen. But it’s not any business of mine; I’ve said my bit. He’s going to make a go of it, whether or no.”

They crunched through the snow down the street, keeping to a path worn down by other boots. “Maybe he’ll be all right," Merlin said.

“Maybe,” said Will. A sparrow shot across the street ahead of them, peeping furiously. Will watched it disappear into the trees. “Maybe all these odd folk on the road aren’t looking for carts to rob, anyhow.”

This was such an odd thing to say that Merlin almost stopped to ask him about it, but Will spoke again before Merlin had a chance. “You’re not bringing that with you, are you?” Will asked, pointing at the book.

“No, I thought I’d drop it down the well.” Merlin wrapped his jacket tighter around his cargo. “Of course I’m bringing it. You don’t expect me to waste an entire evening listening to Everard go on and on about his imaginary lady friend in Merendra, do you?”

Will looked like he might have had something to say. But he just shook his head and trudged onward.

As it turned out, not a single person in the motehall was talking about Everard's imaginary lady friend in Merendra, not even Everard himself. Instead, more than half the benches were empty, and those that weren’t had been pulled into a circle around the iron brazier to provide seating for a small cluster of people, mostly those who had been out breaking ice dams that afternoon. They were all listening intently to Peter’s father, who rarely held forth in front of a group and seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, now that he was the center of attention.

“I’ll tell you,” he said as they entered, “I didn’t like the look of him, not one bit. Came out of the trees like a ghost. Dressed all in black, big, funny hat, face like a skeleton.” He pulled down the skin of his own cheeks to illustrate the stranger's gauntness. “Gave me a fright, he did. I’m not ashamed to admit it.”

“What did he want, Dad?” Peter asked eagerly.

“I’m getting there, lad, I’m getting there.” Eli took a swig from his cup. “Now, I don’t think this fellow was from round here. Never seen togs like that on anyone before - I could’ve gone for a swim in his hat, it was that big. And he had a funny way of talking, too, like everything was a little joke.” Eli's forehead wrinkled. “I will say I didn’t like his laugh very much - dead sounding, it was. Nasty, like.”

“What did he want, Eli?” came Wesley’s testy voice. Duncan’s grandfather was nearly seventy years old and had no time for melodramatic recitations.

Eli swallowed a grumble, but it would have been rude to ignore the most senior person in the room. “Looking for someone, he said. Can’t remember the name now. Some foreign woman. Said she was wanted.”

“What for?”

“Didn’t ask.”

“Oh, well done, Eli,” said Ellinor’s father, and the others chuckled.

“Listen, now,” Eli said defensively, waving his cup for emphasis, “you wouldn’t have done, either - he didn’t look like the type you’d want to nettle much, if you take my meaning. Wouldn’t like to meet him on a dark road; no, I would not.” He shook his head. “Said to keep my eyes open for any _funny business_ in the area, though, so you’ll know what that means.”

Merlin’s chest fluttered uneasily, as if the sparrow from outside had landed inside his ribcage. 

“I didn’t much like his look, mind you, but I had half a mind to tell him about our gaggle of houseburglars. You know as well as I do that they walked away with more than they could carry, and without a peep out of any of the animals.”

The group nodded darkly, murmuring agreement. 

“Maybe that’s who he was looking for, Dad!” Peter said suddenly, his eyes wide and excited. “Maybe that’s why he was out this way.”

“He said he was looking for a woman, boy,” said Wesley. 

Frery nodded. “There weren’t any women in that bunch.”

“But how do we _know?_ ” Peter persisted. “If they could, you know - ” He made an indeterminate wiggling gesture with his fingers. “They could look like anybody, couldn’t they?”

The group members looked at each other. It did not appear that they had considered this idea. Eli looked disappointed that he had not thought of it himself. 

Peter, emboldened, scooted forward on his chair. “Yeah - yeah, and now they’ve gone, they’ll look like someone else. Like a nobleman, or - or my own mum, or someone’s old grandsire or something.”

Wesley narrowed his eyes. Eli rubbed his stubbly chin thoughtfully. “Well, I wish I’d thought of that,” he admitted. “He offered me a fair sum for information. Shame I didn’t mention it, or I’d be sitting pretty just now.”

An intrigued ripple went through the group. Peter choked on his drink. “Dad!” he sputtered. “You ought to have just told him anything and taken the money!”

“Don’t be a fool, boy,” Wesley said sharply. “Fellow like that, he knows where you live.” He pointed at Eli with one wrinkled finger. “You don’t want to go getting mixed up in that business, Eli. You keep your head down and your nose in your own mug, and that ought to be good enough for you.”

No one was bold enough to contradict him outright, but a number of people around the circle scooted closer to Peter’s father, asking in furtive, hopeful voices if the man had given any more details as to this mystery woman’s appearance. Peter, catching sight of Will and Merlin in the doorway, flagged them down with a wave. “William, mate!” he called. “You’re a bit strapped for funds just now, aren’t you? Maybe you’ll take an interest - seen any funny business lately?”

Merlin’s stomach crawled like he had eaten one too many of Henry’s sun-dumplings. Will set down the repaired stool. Too carefully, like he were picking his way across the same icy path Merlin had slipped on earlier that morning. “Other than your face?” he said, after a brief pause.

Peter rolled his eyes. “Come here, mate; sit down and have a listen. Find this mystery bint and you’ll be able to replace all your goats and then some, isn’t that right, Dad?”

Will seemed to be taking a lot of time with his next answer. Merlin, for the first time in all the years they’d known each other, wished Will wouldn’t - that he would, just this once, give in to the infuriating instincts that made him so contrary and bullheaded and bold, and pick up that stupid stool and chuck it into the brazier and send the coals spilling across the floor so everyone else would be hollering and the two of them could bolt right out the door, down the street, across the green, over the hedgerow, into the woods, and never back this way ever again. They could disappear into the White Mountains, go Farthest North, go to see dragon’s breath and horned fish. Go someplace the sun never went down. Someplace where no one knew who Merlin was.

But the stool stayed stubbornly fixed to the floor.

“Haven’t you got stock to look after?” Will said finally. “Why are you wasting your time on this rubbish?”

“It’s not rubbish,” Peter retorted. “It’s good money. But you don’t have to go in for it if you don’t want to. Merlin knows the value of a shilling - he’ll keep an eye out, won’t he?”

 _Two eyes,_ Merlin heard himself say, in some horrible smiling voice. Like it was funny. Like he did know the value of a shilling and thought it would be a fabulous idea to get more of them.

“Don’t rope him into this,” Will snapped. “He’s got enough to do without running around looking for wanted women in the woods. We haven’t all got six siblings lounging around at home to pick up our slack.”

“That’s bunk, half of mine have married and gone - ”

“To get away from you, yeah.”

“Piss off, William - ”

Merlin ducked outside.

The door bumped shut behind him, its wooden clap reverberating in the valley’s snow-covered echo chamber, the smell of hearthfire smoke hanging in the frigid air. Merlin fidgeted in the frozen mud outside the threshold, the sparrow quivering in his ribcage, sweaty fingers wrapped around his book.

He didn’t know where to go. 

His own house was full. Merewyn and Jesmaine were amiable enough, but they were also chatty and curious and too inclined to ask questions. Will’s house had Henry, who might be napping but might also be awake and cooking up a second dinner. And Merlin couldn’t stay out here in the street, either, because the street had Adeliz, who was coming up to the motehall with her brother and giving Merlin a bit of a funny look as she did, though Merlin supposed he could not fault her for it this time, given that he was clutching a massive manuscript and standing around in the middle of the road looking like he’d never set foot on it before.

He pulled the book tighter against his churning stomach. He would just have to go back to Will’s, he thought helplessly. Hopefully, Henry would be either asleep, or too tired from his day of ice-breaking to say much. 

When Merlin eased open the door, however, his spirits sank. Henry was sitting up at the table with his usual vigor, a little sweaty but otherwise seeming to have made a complete recovery.

“Merlin!” he exclaimed. “There you are! I was just wondering whether I ought to come and look for you two. Come and have a bit of dinner; I want to hear what you think of _Curious Calamities._ ” Henry nodded at the tome in Merlin’s hands, with the look of a man who could identify his various wares from a hundred paces away. “Come, come sit,” he urged, waving Merlin over. “Where’s our gracious host?”

Merlin hesitated on the threshold. A quarter of an hour ago, he would have liked nothing better than to spend the rest of his evening lost in a bookish haze of discussion with Henry, but there was no way that he could even fathom the idea of socializing with anyone right now. “Erm…” He forced his answer out, trying to sound normal. “He had to deliver something. To the motehall.”

“To where?”

Merlin tried desperately not to fidget where he stood. “The motehall? We brought you there the other night. Estrid gave you that recipe.”

Henry’s face lit up. “Oh, yes! The little tavern.”

“It’s not really a tavern - ”

Henry was already pushing himself up. “Shall we join him, do you think?”

A splinter of fear lanced through Merlin. “I can’t, Henry, I’m sorry - I was just coming to say that, erm.” What had he been coming to say? What would get him out of here soonest? “I was just going to run up to my mother’s and do my evening round. It won’t take a bit.”

Henry frowned. “Are you certain? You don’t want to have a bit of supper first?”

Merlin shook his head. “No, that’s all right. You can go, though. I’m not sure if Will was going to stay or not. You might catch him if you hurry.”

Henry came around the table at Merlin, his normally bright expression changing into something like concern. “You’re looking a bit wan this evening, Merlin. Are you feeling all right?”

Merlin felt like a swarm of bees were crawling around in his stomach, actually. “I’m fine, Henry.”

“Nonsense! You didn’t eat a bit of breakfast this morning.”

Merlin did not think it would help to explain once again that breakfast was not a customary meal for them, not the way Henry took it. “I’m fine, Henry, thank you.” He forced a smile. “I ate supper before you got up. I - ” He rummaged around for something, anything, that could get him out of here. “I’ve just got a little headache. It’s nothing.”

Henry nodded. “That’s too much reading, lad,” he said knowingly, patting Merlin on the shoulder. “You’ve strained your eyes. I can’t criticize, of course; I’ve been afflicted many times myself - I ought to know better by now, but there you are.” He gathered his cloak around himself, pulling it up to his chin. “You’ll come back and have a little lie-down soon, though, won’t you? You ought to rest a bit.”

In any other situation, Merlin would have found it endearing, being mother-henned by a man who didn’t understand about robbers and couldn’t tell a sheep from a goat and insisted on eating at the oddest times of day. “I will.”

“All right, then.” Henry shuffled out the door. “Give your mother my regards, and her charming guests - perhaps I’ll see them tomorrow - ”

Henry hurried down the street toward the motehall; Merlin, in the interest of preserving his cover story, exited after him, forking off the main road as if he were heading for home, but he doubled back around Gilbert’s cottage and returned to Will’s place instead, though he did not go inside this time. He’d meant it when he’d told Henry that he didn’t think Will was planning on staying at the motehall - it had been long enough now that Will could return at any moment, Henry in tow, and Merlin did not want to talk to either of them. 

He wandered around to the side yard. A thin crust of ice snapped under his boots, plunging his feet into softer layers of snow. A couple of Will’s chickens scurried up into their coop at the sound of Merlin's approaching footsteps, expecting to be shut up for the night.

Merlin climbed into the back of Henry’s wagon and sat at the top of the ramp, curling up around _Curious Calamities._ He watched as a few of the bolder chickens ventured back out of the henhouse and into the darkening yard, searching for a late-night snack. Will had rebuilt that coop the summer previous, replacing the wicker hut he’d used before with a sturdier, more spacious wooden shed rising nearly to his shoulders. He had needed the extra room, given that he had refused to pay poultry dues to the manor for ages (accumulating in the process a number of fines, all of which he had also refused to pay) and he had built the new henhouse to accommodate the extra birds, but Merlin personally thought Will had also done it to hammer home a clear and uncompromising message: that he was not going to be sending any of his chickens up to the manor, ever, regardless of what certain nagging adults in the village told him about it. If the lord wanted to steal Will’s hens, then he could come down Narrow Neck and collect them himself.

Merlin wrapped his arms around his knees. Will had been betting on Denny not caring enough to travel all the way down to Ealdor just to hassle him over a basket of eggs, which was a fairly safe bet at Yuletide. But the cushion of laziness could only last so long, and half of Will’s flock had been stolen out from under him anyway, so whether the defiant display really meant anything in the end -

 _You’ll be able to replace all your goats and then some,_ Merlin heard again in his head. _I’d have been sitting pretty._

He wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers. How much had that man been offering? And had it really been for... _people_? People like Merlin? Nobody had said _magic_ , exactly, but then nobody ever did. And Merlin had never heard of anything like this before, not...not quite like this. Not neighbors selling your name for a sack of shillings. Not people being hunted in the woods, like animals. 

Merlin’s mother had warned him to be careful for as long as he could remember, to never say a word to anyone, ever, but she had never said exactly…certainly, some things had been _understood_ between them, of course, but -

He closed his eyes, his stomach churning. 

Was the world really this ugly?

Distantly, he heard a woman’s voice urging her animals into their byre for the night. He listened to the names - Margoret’s family, their animals. He knew those things about his neighbors - their animals’ names, whose sow was farrowing when, whose little sibling had adopted a piglet for themselves and would wail inconsolably when it came time for it to be butchered. 

His neighbors didn’t know the first thing about him. And still, they knew too much.

Merlin stared at the shadowy forest at the edge of the yard. His ungloved fingers were stiff under his sleeves. The trees loomed in a dark wall, the woods behind them a mapless mystery to anyone who wasn’t _from round here_. 

He could be across this yard in a span of silent seconds. It would be so simple.

Merlin would never be heard from again, no matter how many fellows in big hats came after him. He would leave a trail of footprints until he got to the Warren, yes, but the Warren was solid stone, and there were a hundred ways to come out of those tunnels. No one would ever find him. No one would ever even bother to look.

He sat there for a long time. Henry and Will did not return from the motehall, which made Merlin irrationally angry, because they were supposed to have blundered home and interrupted his brooding and dragged him inside and forced him to eat a second helping of supper and then put him to bed, so that he could lie there and stew about how they had stolen away his chance to escape. But they did not appear, and the moment of opportunity lengthened in front of him, egging him on, daring him to do it.

He wasn’t sure what kept him on the wagon, ultimately. 

It might have been his mother. It might have been thinking about the hurt look on Henry’s face when Merlin didn’t turn up to “have a little lie-down” like he’d promised. But it might have just been the cold, hard rectangle of the book on his lap, which Merlin had abandoned mid-sentence when Will and Henry had returned from their day on the river. 

Merlin wanted to finish that sentence. 

He scooted back into the wagon and hauled the ramp into the closed position behind him, magicking the outer latch closed. He would have to make his own light, but he knew how to do that. He knew all about that kind of _funny business_.

He tucked himself into a corner and opened _Curious Calamities_. 

If someone wanted to sell him for a sack of shillings, at least he could say he had finished his book first.

***

_...where the Ground became uncertain and made a gret booming and cracking like Thonder it was necessarie for us to travail not on Foot but with the aid of long Strips of Wood which were bound to the Feet with Withy and Lether, so that our Weight would land not all in one place and cause us to open a Crevace, which fact we descouvered only after a dire Accident which I shall relay here -_

A loud banging on the door rattled Merlin out of his reading. “Merlin!”

Merlin closed his hand over the sphere of light hovering in his palm, plunging the wagon into darkness.

The irked voice rang out again. “Merlin! Henry thinks you’re with your mother, and your mother thinks you’re with Henry; but I know for a fact that I put this ramp down when I finished out here, and if you make me tramp round to one more person’s house looking for you I’m going to roll this whole kit into the Ea.”

Merlin said nothing. The darkness in the wagon was cloying and absolute. 

A fist hammered sharply against the raised ramp. “I’m not kidding, Merlin!”

Merlin stirred, unwilling to reveal himself, but unable to escape from someone who clearly already knew where he was. “The latch is on your side.”

Merlin heard a muffled, indecipherable curse, and the wagon rattled again, though this time it felt as though someone had kicked one of the wheels. There was a metallic _clunk_ as the bolt holding the door in place retracted, and the ramp swung down to crunch into the snow, opening onto a yard bathed in moonlight.

Will’s face was wind-whipped, his skin lashed red across the cheekbones. “ _The latch is on your side_ ,” he repeated scathingly. “Like you didn’t lock the damn thing from in there yourself!” 

Merlin shrugged. 

“Tell me you haven’t just been sitting here in the dark.”

The seed of magic in Merlin's hand was a hummingbird heart fluttering against his palm, still alive. He unfolded his fingers, soft light spilling over the walls of the wagon, illuminating the advertisements and script samples tacked to the walls.

Will sighed heavily. “For the love of Lugh, Merlin.”

Merlin did not want to look at him. He shook his hand out as if it were wet, and the little light flew from his fingers and lodged in a corner of the ceiling, a glowing spider clinging to the curved roof. “What do you want, Will?”

“What do you mean, what do I want? I’ve been all up and down this stupid village looking for you; I was about to hike out to the Warren. And you’d better be glad I didn’t, because if I’d walked all the way out there and gone stumbling around that rat’s nest in the snow, in the _dark_ , and found you sitting pretty here at home - well, you and I would’ve had words, Merlin.” Will glared into the back of the wagon. “It’s nithering out. What the hell are you doing in here?”

Merlin stared at the wall opposite, where an advertisement for the work of _Froddesham: Master Scrivener, Notary Publick, and Amateur Dispenser of Physick_ stared back in a spiky hand. He didn’t know what to say, so he settled on a tiny piece of the truth. “I didn’t want to talk to Henry.”

“Well, neither did I! What did you send him to the motehall for; he kept me there for ages.” When Merlin did not respond, Will spoke again. “I was coming right back for you.”

The letters of Froddesham’s script samples were highly stylized. His “w” looked like a horse glancing over its shoulder, an extra long stem at the front arching back over raised withers and hips. Merlin would hardly have recognized it for what it was, but for its position in the alphabet chart. The “d” was just as indecipherable, curled over on itself like a snail in its shell.

Merlin wished he had a shell of his own to crawl into. 

Will rapped the doorframe with impatient knuckles, sending shivers through the boards behind Merlin’s back. “Merlin.”

Merlin kept his eyes fixed on Froddesham’s chart. The question welled up in him before he could stop it, his stomach twisting itself into a knot. “Do you think she’s like me?”

Will glanced around for a minute, like he was looking to make sure nobody had come strolling through his yard. 

“I don’t know, Merlin,” he said finally. “It doesn’t matter, all right? You don’t know her. Just forget it.”

Merlin could not forget it. He did not know her, but he could see her as clearly as if he did, a shadowed, frightened form slipping through the trees, the moon high and full over her head. “She’s like me.”

“Maybe,” Will said. “I don’t know.”

“Do you think they’ll catch her?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you think they’ll do to her? If they find her.”

“I don’t know, Merlin.”

“He said she was wanted.” Merlin let his eyes travel over Froddesham’s letters, picking out his own name. Below the alphabet, the scribe had provided a number of one-line proverbs, sample sentences in various scripts for potential customers to peruse. _If now thy neighbor’s house doth burn, to thee the fire soon shall turn._ “Who wants her, do you think?”

To that, Will did not reply. 

Merlin looked at him, suddenly suspicious. Will was fingering a loose thread from his mittens.

“What?” Merlin asked.

“What?” Will said, looking up.

“You’re supposed to say ‘I don’t know, Merlin.’”

Will made a face. “What is this, a mummers’ play?”

“You - ”

“If I’d known I had lines, I’d have studied up.”

Merlin was in no mood to play. “Don’t do that to me.”

“Do what?”

“Don’t _distract_ me, don’t - I'm not Peter, you can't wind me up so I’ll forget what I’m saying - ”

“If _only_ that worked on you - ”

“Tell me,” Merlin urged. “Did you hear something? Was there something else after I left?”

“Merlin - ”

“Will!”

Will swore under his breath. He hauled himself over the lip of the ramp and into the wagon. “Stop shouting,” he said. “You’re going to wake the whole kingdom.” He glanced at Merlin’s spider-lamp. “And put that light out before somebody sees.”

“No,” Merlin said. “It’s mine. It’s - it’s not doing anyone any harm. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

Will looked he wanted to strangle Merlin with his belt. “I didn’t _say_ there was anything wrong with it," he said, visibly frustrated. "Lower it a bit, at least.”

Merlin, mutinously, considered making it brighter instead. But years of his mother’s warnings got the better of him, and he dimmed the globe of light until its shine was more like that of a simple candle. 

He glared at Will through the weaker glow. “ _Now_ tell me,” he said. “Do you know who she’s wanted by? What did they say after I left?”

Will settled against the opposite wall, sighing. “Nothing, Merlin, all right? Nobody said anything after you left.” Will let his head thunk back against the boards. “I had it out with Peter for a bit and Henry came blundering in like a bull in the bakehouse, and that was it; everyone was that pleased to see him. They’ve gone nadgers over noggin for that fellow; they can’t believe he did an entire day’s work without crying or collapsing in the river. I think Eli wants to adopt him.”

“Eli's got seven children.”

“Yeah, but as a fun nephew, like.” 

Merlin waited. Will twisting the fraying mitten thread around his finger. “Listen, Merlin,” he said after a minute. “I don’t know anything.”

Merlin’s jaw tightened. “I don’t believe you. Earlier you said something about bandits not being interested in Henry’s cart - ”

“Have I finished?” Will shot him a frustrated look. “If you would shut it for one ruddy second…”

Merlin did. 

“I said, I don’t _know_ anything,” Will continued. “But anybody who’s paying any attention at all ought to know who she’s wanted by, and I don’t care if Duncan does think I’m a nutter for saying so. We keep hearing all these queer stories out of Engerd and Merendra - even Euen was telling me, he had folk asking funny questions up his way, too - and I keep saying it, but everybody looks at me like I’m trying to start something. These people like to yammer on about politics like they’ve got godsknowledge, but they don’t ever listen to anything they don’t want to hear. And Duncan’s no better than the rest of them, for all that he’s a fine hand in the field.” Will's brow contracted. “I was trying to tell you the other night. But then Henry came and interrupted me, and you know what he’s like; it was useless - ”

Merlin felt as if Will were an escaped calf racing aimlessly about the green. “The point, Will - ”

“The _treaty_ ,” Will said. “The accord with Camelot.”

That was not even in the remote vicinity what Merlin had been expecting to hear. “What about it?”

Will was silent for a moment. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“What part of it doesn’t make sense? It’s a peace treaty. It is what it is.”

“No,” Will said. “That’s what everyone keeps telling me, and I don’t care how many ways they try to say it, they’re wrong. That lot doesn’t like to ask questions, Merlin, you know what they're like - they hear we've finally signed a treaty with our nasty neighbor and think ‘well isn’t that just fantastic, let’s have ourselves a little celebration!’ But they don’t _think_ about it, Merlin, just - _think_ about it, will you? Why? What’s a kingdom like that stand to get out of a place like this?”

Merlin tried to dredge up old snippets of conversations at Hallmote, though the truth was that he mostly tried to steer clear of politically-charged topics whenever they cropped up, mostly because every political discussion he’d ever been party to had ended in spilt drinks, foul moods all around, and the rest of his neighbors wanting to wring Will’s neck. 

“I don’t know,” Merlin admitted. “Free trade?”

Will gave Merlin a flat look. “Merlin. Have you seen Henry lately? Do you even listen to that fellow when he talks?”

“He’s harmless, Will.”

“I know he is, or I wouldn’t be housing him, would I? But he’s moneyed, Merlin, and he talks about carting that load around Camelot like it’s nothing. He looked at me like I had six heads when I told him the King’s Road wasn’t safe to drive on.”

“That’s just...it must be different where he comes from.”

“It _is_ different where he comes from; that’s what I’m telling you. Camelot is richer than the seventh sovereign of Daobeth. They don’t need us for anything. There’s nothing we’ve got that they can’t get somewhere else.”

“Fine, then,” Merlin said. “Maybe they want to make their border safer.”

“Camelot doesn’t need to sign a little bit of parchment to make their border safer. They’ve got a real army. It’s not all mercenaries and - and conscripts, you know. They’re real soldiers.” Will scowled and snapped the thread loose from his mitten. “Cenred couldn’t capture a single twig on Camelot’s side of the border if Pendragon wrapped it up and sent it to him as a gift for his birthday, may he never have another.”

Merlin was starting to feel a little exasperated. Will was clever as could be, and Merlin would take his opinion over the rest of their neighbors’ any day, but he could work himself up into such a production, sometimes. It was why people tired of him so quickly.

“So it’s peace for peace’s sake,” Merlin said. “It’s a peace treaty, Will. That’s what it’s for. It doesn’t have to be some grand conspiracy.”

Will shook his head. “Now you sound like Matthew.”

“Because Matthew's a sensible bloke! You’re talking in circles.”

“Merlin...”

“What’s the problem, then?"

Will didn’t respond right away. When he did, it wasn’t to answer Merlin’s question.

“I was looking for you for ages, you know,” Will said. He stared at the piece of thread in his fingers, which he was tying into a series of tiny, hard knots. 

Merlin wasn’t sure what to say to that. He settled for an honest, “Sorry.”

Will had an odd look on his face. “Sort of thought you’d done a runner on me for a minute,” he said, after a while longer. “Didn’t fancy explaining that one to your mum.”

That was a little too on the nose for Merlin’s tastes. “I was just reading.”

“Yeah?” Will glanced up, that same strange expression on his face. “Because you didn’t even put my hens in for the night. And I’ll tell you, Merlin, that wouldn’t have been very matey of you. You know I can’t afford to lose any more animals.”

Merlin looked out the door. The henhouse was closed now, all of its occupants presumably shut up inside. He didn't know what to say. 

“I was just reading,” he repeated.

“Yeah, you said that.” Will focused on the thread in his fingers for a while longer, rolling it into a pea-sized knot. Finally, he threw the knot of thread out the door. “Listen, Merlin,” he said abruptly. “Kings and queens don’t make peace ‘for peace’s sake.’ They just don’t. It would be a finer-looking world if they did, but they don’t, and anyone who tells you differently is lying. Camelot doesn’t need our money, and they aren’t afraid of our soldiers, but if the mad king next door signed some bit of parchment giving us access to riches we’ve been raiding him over for years, then he’s getting something out of it, and you can be ruddy well sure it isn’t the satisfaction of having done us a charity.”

The first suggestion of a bad feeling uncurled in Merlin’s belly. “No,” he said slowly. “I suppose it mustn’t be.”

“And it’s a bit _convenient_ , isn’t it, how we sign this accord and now suddenly there’s people-sized carts going up and down the road, and foreign fellows in strange clothes wandering the wood, asking after folk and handing out purses and telling people to be on the lookout for - ”

“Funny business,” Merlin breathed. The cold drifting in through the door crept all the way up his spine, settling as a lump of ice behind his breastbone. 

“Don’t tell my mother,” he said.

Will shook his head grimly. “She already knows, Merlin.”

“Will - ”

“I won't say anything! What the hell would I tell her, anyhow?”

Merlin’s spider light faltered, Froddesham’s poster and its assorted proverbs flickering in and out of visibility. _In summer’s heat, friends aplenty; in winter’s sleet, not one in twenty._

“Look,” Will said, glancing at the guttering light. “Don’t think on it. People can’t tell tales on you if they don’t know anything, so it doesn’t matter. You can just...keep on like always.”

“What about the girl?”

“What about her?” Will asked helplessly, spreading his hands. “You don’t know her. She could be an outlaw, or a murderer, or something; you don’t know.”

“She’s not,” Merlin said. “She’s like me.”

“ _Maybe_ ,” Will reminded him. “And maybe she’s a burly robber in disguise. Peter seemed to think so, anyhow.”

“Peter’s wrong.”

“Well, of course he is,” Will said. “But we'll let him have his little delusions.”

Merlin wrapped his arms around his knees and buried his head in them. The corners of the book in his lap dug sharply into his ribs.

This wasn’t fair. He’d been having a nice day. The best day, in fact. He’d been cozied up at home with an infinite supply of books, and he’d sat there and read them and not bothered a single soul. Why couldn’t anybody just leave him be?

Will’s foot poked him. “Merlin.”

Merlin did not say anything. His voice would give him away.

“Merlin,” Will said again. “Let’s go in. Your light’s out and I’m frozzed.”

Merlin had felt the little glow-lamp sputter and die. But he knew he would not be able to light it again.

Will sighed. Merlin heard him slouch down against the wall, cloth rasping against wooden boards. “Well, if we’re not going in, can you at least make it warmer in here? I've lost toes looking for you, and I think I might lose another couple of important bits, if I can't put my rock somewhere unmentionable soon.” 

Merlin took a long, steadying breath. “I could sit on you.”

“Right. I’ll freeze, thanks.”

“Thought you said you were already frozzed.”

“Well, one frozzed arse on top of another does not a warm body make, Merlin.”

Merlin snorted wetly into the folds of his coat. He unfolded his arms and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. He was so tired all of a sudden. Henry’s book felt as if it weighed a hundred pounds in his lap. 

“You didn’t have to get into it with Peter like that,” he murmured.

“He deserved it,” Will muttered back. “Tosser.”

“He's not that bad,” Merlin said. “He's just...”

“He’s an idiot,” Will said. “And so are the rest of our neighbors. I don’t know why you're always making excuses for them.”

Merlin shook his head wearily. “You just can’t get on with anyone, can you?”

Will pushed himself away from the wall and scooted over to the ramp, hopping down into the snow. He turned and met Merlin’s eyes evenly, that same odd look back on his face. “I get on with you.”

And then he crunched back to the house. 

After a minute, Merlin climbed out of the wagon, too. Tucking his book under one arm, he followed Will across the yard without a word.

There was nothing Merlin could say. It was true enough.

***

“Hah!” 

The knucklebones on the floor clacked together as Merlin, smirking, swept them up into his hand, catching the fifth and final bone as it fell from where he had tossed it. “I win. That’s one less day of threshing for me.”

Will rolled his eyes, but scattered his own set of chucks across the spot they’d cleared on the floor, reserving his toss-taw in the fingers of his right hand. “Loser chooses,” he declared. “We’re doing Frogs in the Well next.”

Merlin shrugged magnanimously. “Whatever you like.”

Henry peered curiously down from his seat at the table to watch Will perform a complicated maneuver which involved tossing the taw in the air and, before he caught it on its way down, snapping a chuck up from the floor and dropping it through a circle he made with the fingers of his other hand.

Merlin was feeling much better this morning. He had slept like a rock the night before, perhaps because he had stayed up too late the previous evening, or perhaps because he and Will had been too bone-frozen to do anything but combine their blankets and go to bed in a tangle, the warming rock sandwiched somewhere between them. Henry had fussed over Merlin all morning and refused to let him do any reading until that evening at the earliest (“Your eyes, lad; believe me; you _must_ give them a proper rest or you’ll be ill again”) and since Merlin could not very well explain that he had not in fact been suffering from eyestrain the day before, he had obeyed Henry’s mandate, going out for his morning round and then returning home to eat a double helping of breakfast, answer a number of anxiously solicitous questions about his nonexistent headache, and also thrash Will at knucklebones, the latter of which activities was still ongoing.

Will fumbled his taw on threes. Merlin swept Will’s chucks out of the way to make room for his own, adding as an aside to Henry, “I always win this game.”

“You always win because you cheat,” said Will.

Merlin dunked the first chuck neatly through his encircled fingers and caught the falling taw before it came anywhere near the floor. “I do not.”

But he did, of course. He and Will both knew that he always nudged his taw a little higher in the air than he had actually thrown it, to give himself just an extra instant to pick up more chucks, and that he called chucks on the ground closer to his sweeping fingers. None of this was ever done obviously enough to be noticed by anyone who didn’t know any better, but Will, who absolutely did know better, continued to accept Merlin’s challenges to play regardless, competitive as he was. “The more shall be my glory,” he would say, whenever Merlin started to feel a bit guilty about it. “Keep on with your little tricks, Merlin; you couldn’t beat me in a fair game anyhow.”

Merlin flicked his taw into the air, keeping it at the top of its arc just this side of too long.

“You cheat _and_ you lie,” Will remarked, as Merlin dumped several chucks through the ring he’d made with the fingers of his other hand.

“Prove it,” Merlin challenged. 

Will would never do any such thing, of course, which was the only reason Merlin dared him to try. The silent conversation they had with their eyes promised other, slightly less deadly revenges.

Merlin launched his taw into the air and snapped up all four chucks from the floor. “I win.”

“You cheat,” Will corrected him. “What’ll it be, you cozening crook?”

Merlin considered. They did not play for money, since neither of them had any worth speaking of. Instead they played for favors, or chores, or to determine who would card the wool still slouched accusingly in one corner of the house.

“The last apple,” Merlin decided. When Will opened his mouth to protest that the apples were already all gone, Merlin added, “Next year.”

Will rolled his eyes. “As if I’m going to remember that!”

“I will.”

“I’m sure.” 

Will swept all of his knucklebones into a little leather bag. 

“What, don’t you want to go again?” Merlin asked.

“You’ve fleeced me enough for one day,” Will replied. “I owe you more than I owe the manor. Next I know you’ll be carving me a tally stick of your own. You and Denny can have yourselves a nice little sit-down - ”

“All right, all right,” Merlin said quickly, before this could deteriorate into something less fun. “We’ll have a different game; you can earn it back - ” He reached over Henry’s lap and retrieved a book from the pile of volumes stacked up on the bench. Opening it, he flipped the book around so Will could see the interior. “Name one letter and I’ll do your mucking out for the next two weeks.”

Will rolled his eyes again and tied his bag of knucklebones shut. “You’re barmy, Merlin.”

“One letter! One letter for fourteen days of dung-shoveling.”

“No.”

“I’ll teach you a letter and ask you again tomorrow.”

“No.”

“I’m practically gifting this to you, you realize?” Merlin waved the book at Will. “Go on. Take it. In the spirit of Yule.”

“It’s not Yule yet,” Will said. “And I’ve already had a Midwinter gift from you; I’m not taking another.” 

"Oh, don't start with that again - "

"I'm not starting with anything." Will got to his feet and pulled on his outerwear. “I’ve got work to do, anyhow. We can’t all of us be resting our tender eyes.” He tossed the bag of knucklebones into Merlin’s lap. “You freeloaders have a lovely afternoon, now," he said, flipping a cheeky salute to Henry and bowing out the door.

“Now where’s he gone?” Henry wondered. “You’ve finished your rounds, haven’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but there’s always something to do.” The uncarded sacks of wool in the corner seemed to stand out to Merlin sharply - he felt a little guilty, but not quite guilty enough to open them. “And Will does a bit of carpentry on the side, you know, whenever he can get it. So he’s always working on something. He vends up at Pedders Hope sometimes, when we go to sell our wool and cloth and things, so that’s a bit of extra for him.”

“Oh, I see! And does that pay very well?”

“Erm…” Merlin wasn’t sure what Henry would define as ‘well-paying’ work. “Not exactly, I mean - it’s not always for money. People pay in kind. Food or clothes or favors, work trades. He did some fencework for Nigel and Rory a while back so he could overwinter his heifer with their cows.” Merlin started packing up his knucklebones into their own soft bag. “She could be out in the yard here, really, but she’s in calf for the first time, and Will’s fretty about it, so he wants her in a byre.”

Henry’s face lit up. “In _calf_ , you say? You don’t think - I don’t suppose there’s any chance of us seeing the little thing make its entrance, is there?”

Merlin laughed. “I hope not! Not for another two-month, anyhow.”

Henry hid his disappointment about as well as he hid anything, which was to say not particularly well. “Oh, yes, of course. I see.”

“You wanted to see a calving?” It was hard not to smile. Merlin didn’t want Henry to think he was poking fun; it was just such a mundane thing to be excited about.

“Oh - well - ” Henry looked a little embarrassed, but he handwaved this feeling away almost immediately. “You know, I like to see anything I’ve never seen before. It’s the only way to learn things, don’t you think?”

Merlin raised his eyebrows at Henry’s pile of wares. “You’ve got all these books. I'd have thought you could learn anything you wanted from them.”

“Oh, books are marvelous, Merlin, believe me; I wouldn’t give them up for the world. But anything ever set down in a book must have been experienced first, at least once.” Henry nodded, stroking his beard. “People simply _must_ see the world for themselves, before they decide they’ve got something to say about it, or that’s my own thinking, at least. That goes doubly for authors who’d like to be paid for their observations. Some of them try to take the short road, of course, but then, you can always tell when writers don't know what they’re on about.” He gestured at himself. “Look at me, for instance. You wouldn’t like to read a book on cattle husbandry penned by yours truly, would you?”

Merlin smiled at him. “For education? Or for entertainment?”

“You see?" Henry laughed. "We understand each other.”

Merlin pushed himself up from the floor and crossed to a knee-high cupboard on the other side of the room, stashing the knucklebones inside. “I hear you,” he said. “But it must be amazing, though, wanting to know something and only having to go and look it up.” He looked at Henry, itching to pick his brain for more details. “Rich folk have got libraries, haven’t they?”

“Very rich folk,” Henry clarified. “Royalty, certainly. And some of the wealthier noble houses. Individuals may keep smaller private collections, though I’m not sure I would classify those as libraries, exactly.”

“And have you ever seen any? Libraries, I mean.”

Henry nodded. “We offer restoration services, you know, and some clients prefer to keep their more expensive manuscripts on the premises. So we’ll go to them, in that case.”

“And is it really like that,” Merlin asked, coming to sit on the opposite side of the table, “where everything is laid out on shelves and you can pick up any book you like about anything you want to know?”

“Well,” Henry said, “I don’t know about _anything_. Even the collections of the very wealthy are limited by space.” He tapped his knees thoughtfully. “And honestly, even if that weren’t the case, there’s the market to consider.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well...” Henry gestured at his pile of wares. “Just that an industry like mine - well, it’s the same as any industry, my boy; we produce to meet demand. Books are horribly fussy things to put together, you know; it takes all sorts of time and money to produce even one of them - we can only afford to make what we know we can sell. So I’m afraid what you’ll find in a library is driven by the demands of our client base.”

Giving people what they wanted to read sounded reasonable enough to Merlin, though Henry made it sound like a bad thing. “Is that wrong?”

“Well…it’s unfortunate, I think,” Henry replied. “It’s never sat quite right with me, to be honest. Though I don’t expect there’s anything that can be done about it just now.”

Merlin did not understand. Henry reached over to pat Merlin's wrist reassuringly. “All I’m saying is that we cater to a privileged few. You asked whether you could walk into a library and pick up a book about anything you wanted to know; well, I suppose the answer is that it depends, regrettably, on whether what you want to know aligns with what the wealthy have found _worthy of recording_.”

Merlin frowned, not liking that idea very much. He had a feeling it was the sort of issue about which Will would have had a number of loud opinions to share, if he were here.

Henry drummed his fingers on the table, frowning faintly. “I wonder, sometimes, what we’re losing...the wealthy have their own concept of what’s worth reading, I suppose, but I ask you, lad: where would I be just now, if our William hadn’t known how to fix my cart?”

“Up Narrow Neck with a broken wagon shaft, I think.”

“That’s exactly right,” Henry said. “That’s exactly the size of it.” He rubbed his bearded chin. “The simplest things. There’s something to be said for the magic of the ordinary, Merlin, though people will try to tell you it doesn’t merit a shelf in the lord’s library. You can’t price common wisdom.”

“My mother says that,” Merlin said. “I mean, she says you can’t buy common sense, only grow it. And not everybody bothers planting it in the first place.”

“ _Common sense doesn't grow in everyone’s garden_ ,” Henry chuckled. “Your mother’s right. I’m a perfect example, aren’t I? I sit in my shop with my books and consider myself very well-read, but goodness, the things I don’t know! It’s positively frightening.”

Merlin found this impossibly endearing. “That’s all right,” he assured Henry. “I don’t know a lot of things, either. I’d never even seen a book before you came.”

Henry nodded, but it was more like he was nodding to himself. “And that’s all part and parcel of the same problem, isn’t it?” he murmured, lost in thought. “Yes, indeed.”

After a minute, he sat up straighter. “Do you know,” he mused, “I think I would like to see that cow.” 

“Will’s heifer?”

“The one that’s due to calve in two months. Would that be all right? If it isn’t any trouble.”

“It isn’t,” Merlin replied, bemused. “But you do know she looks just like an ordinary cow, right? Maybe a bit bigger round the middle. But she’s just a cow.”

“That’s all right, Merlin. I don’t have much to do with cows at home, you know. Even ordinary ones.” Henry gathered up his outerwear, including the beaver cap. “Besides, the ordinary has its own magic, isn’t that what we were just saying?”

Merlin was more than happy to oblige Henry in whatever odd whim appeared to have seized him, and so they sallied out into the snow together, Henry swaddled from top to toe in his many layers and Merlin with his boots still damp from the morning round. Nigel and Rory’s paddock was situated along the eastern wall of the valley, and it took Merlin and Henry about ten minutes of slogging through the snow to get there, during which time Henry stopped to have conversations with at least five different people, all of whom he greeted expansively, like they were his oldest friends, and all of whom seemed equally pleased to see him. Merlin was starting to think that if they didn’t send Henry away soon, the village was going to take it up at Hallmote and vote to keep him permanently, which was a thought he voiced to Henry as soon as it occurred to him, because it seemed like the sort of thing a person would like to hear.

He was rewarded when Henry's cheeks deepened to a darker, flustered bronze. “Well, now, I - that’s very kind of you to say.”

Merlin stopped Henry when they reached the fence. All three cows were at the far end of the paddock, rooting around in the snow next to the natural windbreak of the valley wall. “Come in,” Merlin said, untying the gate and ushering Henry inside. “You can say hello to them.”

“They can’t be grazing, can they?” Henry asked, watching the cows. “In all this snow?”

“This really isn’t very much,” Merlin replied, closing the gate and heading for the empty byre. “They can get down through deeper if they need to. But we have to keep them on hay in winter, still.” 

They approached the straw-strewn byre, which was a small three-sided shed with an open front and a lofted area above for hay storage. Merlin dragged a ladder away from the wall and carried it to the front of the byre, bracing one end on the ground and laying the other against the edge of the overflowing hayloft a few feet over their heads. “Do you want to get them some feed?” he asked Henry. “They’ll come running.”

Henry shot up the ladder so eagerly that Merlin had to grab the two side struts to steady it. “Don’t slip! There’s ice on everything.”

The ladder wobbled ominously. “Oh, dear! Oh, yes. There is.”

There were a few more wiggles, but then Henry hauled himself over the edge of the loft. Merlin wanted to laugh, seeing him sitting up there, with his fancy cloak and his beaver cap and his squat little legs dangling over the edge. 

“Well done!” Merlin told him. “How do you feel?”

“Like a king!” Henry proclaimed, obviously very pleased with himself. He patted the haystack on either side of him. “I’ve never been in a hayloft before.”

“You’ll wish you hadn’t, once you get itchy.” Merlin pointed at a freestanding hay rack in front of the byre. “Why don’t you throw some hay down into the manger here? Just toss it over the side.”

Henry scrambled up and shoveled an armful of hay over the edge of the loft, missing the wooden manger by several inches. “Oh, dear,” Henry said.

“It’s all right,” Merlin assured him. The cows had lifted their heads at the scraping of the ladder and were already ambling over to the byre. “They’re not spoiled like us two-legged folk; they’ll eat what you spill. Toss me another couple bunches and come on down. I’ll introduce you.”

Henry’s next throws landed squarely in the middle of the manger. He picked his way down the ladder much more carefully than he had done on the way up, then joined Merlin, who had scooped up the dropped pile of hay and deposited it in a hayrack on the side of the byre that Nigel and Rory’s cows liked to use. “Come here, you two," Merlin said. "What’s the matter, doesn’t Will give you a snack in the afternoons?”

The two cows shouldered past him without so much as a sniff in his direction, ignoring him in favor of their extra lunch. Both of them had been bred earlier in the year, the same as Will's heifer, and their rounded bellies brushed against each other as they pulled hay from the rack. 

Millie, Will’s cow, had gone straight to the manger at the front of the byre, though she did pause to give Henry a once-over, lifting her blocky head to assess the unfamiliar person who had come sliding down from the roof. Henry looked slightly apprehensive at the sight of her short, curving horns - Millie was small in comparison with the rest of the village’s cows, but even a small cow was big enough to bowl a person over if she had a mind to do it, especially a person so short and bowl-able as Henry. “Don’t worry,” Merlin said. “She’s sweet. She likes everyone.”

As if in response to this, Millie swung her head around and stuffed it under Merlin’s arm, snuffling around in his coat. “Get out of it, you daft creature,” he said, pushing her firmly away. “It’s the middle of winter. I haven’t got anything for you.” 

She swished her tail sedately and plodded over to the manger. 

“She’s lovely,” Henry decided. 

It was hardly a stocksman’s technical assessment. But Merlin agreed with him. “She is very pretty,” he said, stroking one fawn-colored shoulder. “Will got her just this year. Did all sorts of extra work to afford her, though I do think he got her a bit cheap, seeing as she’s little.”

“Little?”

“Well - in the back, I mean.”

“Is that bad?”

“It’s not bad, exactly. But I suppose the seller wondered how she’d do come calving time. Her rump’s sort of…” Merlin made a narrow shape between his two palms. “You can see those pin bones on either side of her tail base, there - they’re a bit close together. But that doesn’t mean she’ll have trouble. It’s more to do with the weight of the calf than anything.” 

Henry was nodding, as intent upon this explanation as if he were a student attending a master class on cattle husbandry. “Naturally, naturally. And of course there’s no way to know the weight of the calf ahead of time, I suppose?”

“No,” Merlin replied, smiling. “Not really. That would be something, wouldn’t it?”

“It would.” Henry gave Millie a tentative pat on her thick neck. “And she lives here year-round?”

“No, not right here. She’ll go out to pasture once her calf is weaned and the grass starts coming up. And then around Beltane all the cattle will go up to the summer pastures at Milchmor.”

“Why’s that?”

Merlin had never met anyone who needed to have herd movements explained to them before. He was glad Will wasn’t here to witness this - it might just kill him. “It frees up meadow space down here. So we can have a bigger hay harvest, and then the animals can have more grazing off the stubble when they come back down.”

“But - someone must stay with the cows, to do the milking - do you go up to this place, as well?”

Merlin nearly bit off his own tongue to keep himself from replying _‘if only.’_ He had wasted plenty of afternoons dreaming about stealing Adeliz’s job away from her so that he and Will could take a turn up at the cowcote, the mountain pastures of which were several hours away from the village proper and completely cut off from human contact, except for your fellow cowherds and whoever made weekly visits from the village to pick up the butter and the cheese that you'd made. Merlin liked cows well enough for the idea to be a tolerable prospect in and of itself, and he liked dairying, too, but most of all he liked the idea of having four months to just _be_ , outside the reach of his neighbors’ apprehensive looks, just him and Will and thirty milk cows out on the mountain moor. 

Will would be bored out of his mind, though. And neither of them were in any position to be away from their home fields. 

“I can’t, really,” Merlin told Henry. “It’s just my mother and I, so I’m on a plow all summer, or harvesting. Adeliz is sort of in charge of the cowcote. She’s a dab hand with cattle. She’ll go up and stay until October or so.”

Henry looked alarmed. “All on her own?”

“Well, she’ll take her sister and some of the other girls - Margoret usually goes; Ellinor sometimes, if she’s not needed at home, but she’s an only child as well, so sometimes she can’t.”

Henry watched Millie chomp her way through a mouthful of hay. “Goodness, I had no idea. I’m very impressed.”

Merlin scratched Millie’s rump, hiding a smile. “Tell Adeliz,” he suggested. “It’s a lot of work for her. She’ll be happy to hear it.”

Henry wrinkled his forehead, thinking. “Loose curls?” he ventured. “Brownish-gold complexion? Always has a little sibling on her hip?”

“Yes,” Merlin said, a little surprised. “That’s very good.” Henry had met so many people over the last few days.

“I’ll tell her straight away, next I see her.” Emboldened, Henry reached out and dared to pat Millie on the head. She flicked her ears at the brush of his cloak, but continued her placid munching. “Tell me, Merlin,” he began. “If - imagine one were to be interested perhaps in...obtaining a noble creature such as this - well - I wonder - would it be very difficult to learn, all these things that you know?”

“‘All these things?’” Merlin echoed. “I don’t know ‘all these things’...it’s not anything, Henry, really.”

Henry shook his head. “You’re wrong there, Merlin. Very wrong indeed. That is exactly what I was talking about earlier, you see?”

Merlin did not, exactly. But - “You want a cow?”

“Oh, well,” Henry waved his hand in an embarrassed sort of way. “I don’t know. I’ve never had much to do with animals, as I said, and goodness knows I haven’t the space for them, living over the shop - but they’re just - they’re very _likable_ , don’t you think, Merlin? I think I enjoy looking after them.”

As far as Merlin could tell, Henry was basing this assessment off four days of tagging along on Merlin and Will's morning rounds, but Merlin found himself charmed, regardless. “You could keep a cow,” he decided. “If you had the space, and the money to feed her - you could have one.”

“Do you think so? It seems like rather a lot to learn, you know, and everyone here is already so clever about it - it’s like you were born leading animals around by the nose.”

“We were,” Merlin admitted. “It’s not so much to learn, Henry. You could do it. That’s what you’ve got all those books for, isn’t it?”

“It’s not much in demand as a subject, common husbandry,” Henry murmured. He thought for a moment, absently scratching Millie behind one tawny ear. “Do you know, if you sent me home with this creature today, I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea what to feed her. Or how much to feed her. Or how to milk her - I’ve never milked a single creature in my life, can you believe it?”

“Well, she’s dry just now, so you wouldn’t have to worry.”

“But she’s in calf, isn’t she? Good lord, I don’t know the first thing about that business, either. I doubt I even would have realized she was carrying, if you hadn’t told me.” Henry stared at Millie, perhaps trying to determine how round was too round for her to be an open cow.

Merlin changed his mind about an earlier thought - he wished Will _were_ here to witness this.

“Do you want me to show you the calf?” Merlin offered.

Henry looked at him, bewildered. “Show me...the calf? I thought you’d said it wasn’t due to arrive for two months.”

“It isn’t. But I can show you how to feel for it. If you still wanted to learn something new, I mean.”

“How to feel…” Henry followed the line of Millie’s back with his eyes until his gaze rested on her rump. His eyes widened. “Oh, dear. Oh, my. I don’t think...hm. I mean to say - well - ” He sucked in a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Well, if you really think so - it’s just - er. Are you sure I’m altogether...qualified?”

Merlin looked at him in confusion. “Sorry?”

“Qualified. To, er.” Henry wiggled his fingers. “To have a feel around.”

“To have a feel…” 

Henry, his complexion deepened again by a flush, tipped his head significantly toward Millie’s backside. Merlin realized suddenly what he was thinking. “Not like that, Henry!” he laughed. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Henry deflated in visible relief. “Oh! Oh, that’s very good. I have to admit I didn’t fancy that very much, Merlin. I’ve always said I’ll try anything once, but...goodness gracious, it’s hardly my area.” He left Millie's head and joined Merlin by the right flank, where Millie continued to ignore both of them in favor of her overflowing manger. “But then you must do that sort of thing all the time, I suppose.”

Merlin shrugged. “When it’s needed. But you don’t need to have a hand in to check for a calf, not when she’s this far along.” 

Henry’s eyes reacquired their curious glimmer. Merlin pulled him aside into a better position. “Here. Don’t stand right by her back end there. Millie’s a good girl; she’d never lift her leg at you, but it’s better you start learning good habits early.”

“Absolutely,” Henry said, tucking himself in next to Merlin. “Proper positioning. Of course. I’ll be sure to include that in my upcoming pamphlet on cow husbandry.” He winked at Merlin. “You’ll be credited, of course.”

“Of course,” Merlin smiled wryly. “Here. Let me see your hand.”

Henry obliged. Merlin shaped Henry’s short fingers into a fist, then guided the fist to Millie’s flank and laid the knuckles against her skin, lowish on the belly and just behind the last rib. 

“Right,” Merlin said. “What I’ve done now is put your fist where the calf bed sits. And what we’re going to try to do is jostle Millie’s insides a bit.”

“Oh, dear,” Henry muttered. He twisted his head around to look at Merlin. “Is that all right? I don’t want to make her uncomfortable.”

“It’s fine. It’s just like someone poking you in the stomach, that’s all.”

Henry looked apprehensive, but, to his credit, he kept his fist exactly where Merlin had planted it. “Right. Well, that’s all right, then.”

“So what you want to do is take your hand and bump it up into her belly a few times, sort of like you were trying to bounce something off your knuckles.”

Henry’s apprehensive face became even more concerned. “Like I was...striking her, you mean? With a fist?”

“Well - I mean, yeah, I suppose, but don’t jam your hand in there or anything. Just - be gentle about it, but firm.” Merlin demonstrated the appropriate motion on a different section of Millie’s rounded belly. “What you’re trying to do is jostle the calf bed, so that when you stop pushing and the calf comes swinging back into position, you’ll feel it bump against your fist.”

“Oh, dear me,” Henry said. He set his shoulders in a determined line. “All right.”

“It’s all right if you don’t feel anything right away. It takes practice.”

“Right. All right, then. I’ll give it a go.”

Henry nudged his fist against Millie in the same rhythmic motion Merlin had demonstrated for him, but with too light of a touch. 

“You’re going to have to be a bit firmer,” Merlin advised. “I promise you won’t hurt her.”

“I, er...was thinking more of the calf.”

Merlin struggled valiantly not to smile. “I promise you, Millie jostles that calf more than either of us ever could. Trust me, Henry. I know what I’m on about.”

Henry’s expression cleared. “Of course you do.” He shook his head. “Isn’t that what I’ve been saying all this time? I’m being silly.”

He made another attempt, more confidently this time, pausing in his pushing to wait and feel for an answering nudge from inside. “Hmm,” he said. “I don’t think I felt anything just then, Merlin. It just feels - fleshy. Very like my own stomach, my dear,” he added to Millie, patting her ribcage.

“That’s all right,” Merlin said. “Try a few different spots. Stay behind that rib and work your way down her belly. Sometimes if the calf is bigger it’ll sit lower.”

Henry tried a few different places, each time with improved technique, but he was unable to produce an answering “bump” despite squeezing his eyes shut to focus better on what he was feeling. 

After a while, he shook out his hand. “Hmm,” he murmured. “I’m not sure I’m very good at this, my boy.”

“You’re just fine,” Merlin assured him. “Sometimes we can’t find it either.”

But Merlin had already bumped Millie successfully once, a couple of weeks ago. He was certain he could do it again, if Henry would let him. “Do you mind if I help you?”

“Not at all! Please do.”

Merlin felt his way down Millie’s side, pausing when he found a likely spot. “I’m going to borrow your arm.”

Merlin took Henry’s hand, as if he were wearing Henry’s fingers as a gauntlet over his own loose fist. He settled their interlaced knuckles against Millie’s hide and gave a few exploratory bumps, angling upward into Millie’s abdomen.

The first time he tried, he felt only the doughy squish of rumen. He inched Henry’s hand downward and made another series of probing nudges. “It’s very low,” he muttered, surprised. The calf had grown even over the past couple of weeks. 

He slid their hands down further under Millie’s last rib, and before he even dug in his fist, he knew he was there. He gave her a nudge, and - _b_ _ump_. Something undeniably solid knocked softly against their knuckles.

Henry snapped his head around to look at Merlin. “That was it, wasn’t it?”

Henry's boundless enthusiasm was catching - Merlin grinned a silly grin. “Yes, that was it.”

Excitement bloomed on Henry’s face. “Well, I - !” Merlin released Henry’s hand, and Henry bumped Millie again, without help this time, leaning closer to her barrel belly as if listening for a response. The man beamed with delight at the answering nudge against his knuckles, then tried it again, wide-eyed with amazement. “Incredible,” he wondered. “Just incredible!”

He brushed fascinated fingers across the sweep of the cow’s great ribcage. “ _Glory be to dappled things,”_ he murmured, and Merlin was reminded suddenly of that first morning together in Will’s yard, when Henry’s wagon shaft had been an unhewn log and Merlin’s breakfast bowl had been wedged in between his knees, forgotten and cooling in the early morning chill. “ _Fresh firecoal chestnut-falls, finches’ wings; landscape plotted and pieced, fold, fallow, and plow; skies of couple-color as a brindled cow_.”

Millie swung her head around to inspect these odd sounds, hay dangling from her speckled muzzle. 

“That doesn’t the thing justice at all,” Henry said, shaking his head. “It doesn’t come anywhere near. But it’s hardly the sort of scene kings commission poetry about, you know. Just an ordinary cow.”

Henry patted Millie’s head and looked earnestly at Merlin. “You’ve shown me something marvelous today, Merlin. Thank you.” 

Merlin hardly knew how to reply. He settled for a simple, “You’re welcome.”

Henry gazed across the paddock while Millie lipped at his sleeve. The shell of snow encasing the village’s stone cotts winked dazzlingly in the sun, and skeletal trees cast toothy shadows across the bone-white ground. The eastern ridge of the valley towered sharply over the cow byre, its jagged rock face crusted with ice. Far overheard, a flock of geese cut across the sky in a broken _v_ , honking distantly.

“It is a beautiful world, isn’t it?” Henry murmured, watching the birds go sailing over the barren, frosted fallow field.

That, Merlin truly did not know how to answer. 

He was spared the necessity of an uncertain reply when a voice rang out from the other end of the paddock. “Oi there!” Will called, hoisting himself easily over the fence. “What are you two layabouts doing with my heifer?” 

Henry snapped out of his meditative mood instantly, and launched himself across the paddock, his cloak flapping behind him. “William! Merlin has just taught me the most _remarkable_ thing - !”

Merlin stayed behind. He approached the manger, taking Millie’s boxy head in his hands. She regarded him calmly, her big brown doe-eyes gentle and forbearing.

He scratched her under her hay-flecked chin. “I wonder,” he said quietly, “if he’s right.”

Millie watched him patiently. 

“Do you think he's right?” he asked. 

Merlin wouldn’t know. Yesterday he had wanted nothing more than to vanish into the frozen woods. Today he had been warm in his bed and dry by the fire and playing games with someone who knew he cheated at knucklebones but did not mind.

“I hope he’s right.”

Millie blinked, snuffling, and stuffed her wet nose into Merlin’s coat. 

Merlin accepted this as the only answer she could provide, and let her search him, slobber and all. His pockets were as devoid of treats now as they had been when she’d checked him the first time, but hope, it seemed, sprang eternal, in cows and their keepers alike.

***

Will took Henry to the motehall that night, at the polite but eager urging of Henry, who wanted to “see the little tavern from the other night,” and who seemed either not to hear or not to understand Will and Merlin’s automatic replies of, “It’s not a tavern.” Merlin was happy to let the two of them go, but he himself stayed behind, yesterday’s uncomfortable scene too fresh in his memory. He had no desire to listen to more talk of possible foreign agents hunting down gifted folk in the woods.

He also had too many books to read, which to be quite honest was not a problem Merlin had ever foreseen for himself. But Henry would be leaving for Frostfaire in less than a week, and Merlin was beginning to feel a buzz of urgency every time he looked at how many books remained unopened. The moment Henry and Will left for the motehall, Merlin settled down to read, and he continued to do so until they returned, only pausing once to run home and do his evening round, and once again when an excitedly chattering Henry tripped over Merlin’s feet on his way to bed, nearly toppling face-first into the hearthfire. Merlin certainly did not stop to “rest his eyes” (per Henry’s recommendation), or to card any wool (per Hunith's), but even with this single-minded dedication, the number of volumes he managed to finish paled in comparison to the quantity of books he had not yet explored. All of them were tantalizing mysteries begging to be investigated, but all of them would soon be gone, and Merlin knew he would not be able to get through even the tiniest fraction of them before Henry’s scheduled date of departure. And after Henry had gone, well - that would be it, wouldn’t it?

It shouldn’t have bothered Merlin so much. But the thought of never seeing a book again put a cloud of cold winter butterflies into his stomach.

He could not think about that just now, though. He had to stay focused.

He shifted down into his sleeping pallet. He was flat on his back by the fire, his most recent conquest held over his head as if he were shading his eyes from the sun. The heading at the top of his current page read:

_**Chapter 2** _

**_Vol. 11_ **

**_Whether Insects Respire, and Whether They Have Bloud_ **

Merlin read that entire line over once more, just to make sure he had understood it correctly. This particular author was always asking odd questions like that, things you would never think to wonder about on your own, but which became the most obvious, compelling questions in the world once they had been posed. 

How _did_ insects breathe, anyhow?

He squinted at the text in the flickering firelight. The only noise in the room was the quiet clucking of one of Will’s hens, which Will had found puttering around behind the curtain after shutting up for the night and which he had not felt like carrying all the way back out to the henhouse.

Merlin continued on to the chapter proper.

_Many Writeres deny that Insects respire, and make this Assercioun upon the Ground that in their Viscera there is no Respiratory Organ to be found. On similar Grounds also, they assert that Insects have no Bloud, a thing which cannot exist, they say, in any Animal that is destitute of Hart and Liver; just as, according to them, those Creatures cannot respire which have no Lunges. Upon these Points, however, a vast number of Questions will naturally arise; for the same Writeres do not hesitate to deny that these Creatures are destitute also of Voice, and this notwithstanding the Humes of Bees, the Chirpinge of Grashopperes, and the Sounds emitted by numerous other Insects which will be considered in their respective Places._

Merlin digested that. It was a lot of words at once, but the author had not lost him yet.

_For myne own part, I do not see why Creatures should be less able to live and yet not inhale, than to respire without being possessed of Viscera, a doctrine which I have already mainteined when speking of the Marine Animals; and that notwithstanding the Density and the vast Depthe of the Water which would seme to impede all Breth. That these Creatures have no Bloud I am ready to admit, just as all the Terestrial Animals are not possessed of it; but then, they have something similar, by way of Equivalent. Just as in the Sea, the Cuttel-fish has a black Liquid in place of Bloud, and so too the various kinds of Purpel Snailes, those Juices which we use for the purposes of Dying; so, too, is every Insect possessed of its own Vital Humour, which, whatever it is, is Bloud to it._

_While I leve it to others to form what Opinion they please, for my part, whenever I have considered the Subject, I have ever felt persuaded that -_

Something small and light bounced off Merlin's forehead, accompanied by a grumbled, “You’re doing it again.”

Merlin lowered the book to his chest. Will was sitting up in his bedroll on the other side of the fire, brandishing a second chip of scrap wood. 

“What?” Merlin said.

“You know what,” Will replied. “If I’d known you were going to read those books out loud, I wouldn’t have told Henry you had your letters.”

“Sorry.” Merlin supposed he did read under his breath sometimes, but it wasn’t his fault that the scribe responsible for this text wrote in such a cryptic, indecipherable hand. All the downward strokes were squashed together in a series of identical squat lines, making the _i_ ’s, _n_ ’s, _u_ ’s and _m_ ’s difficult to distinguish, particularly so when any of them occurred in a series. “Go to sleep and you won’t have to listen to me.”

“I can’t sleep with you muttering to yourself.”

“Do you want me to read it to you proper-like?”

Will flopped dramatically down onto his bedroll. “If _ever_ there were anything I wanted less - ”

“Well, I’m afraid you’ll just have to live with it, then.” 

Will gave him an annoyed look. “This is my house, you know.”

Merlin propped the book open on his chest again. 

“What’s that one?” Will asked after a minute. “Is it still that _Curious Calamities_ fellow?”

“No, I’ve finished with him.” _Curious Calamities_ had ended with an alarming postlogue detailing how seven members of the stranded company had perished by the time the ice floes had melted enough to permit sailing towards home - five from a disease which had rendered them unable to chew, and one from exposure, and another by falling into a crevasse during an unsuccessful hunting party. “This is a new one.”

“Which one?”

Merlin flipped the book down, eyeing Will over the spine. “I thought you've just said you don't want me to read it to you.”

“Can’t a man ask a simple question?”

“Can’t a man read his book in peace?”

“He could,” Will said, “if he read it quiet-like, instead of playing _say what you see_ in my ear all night.”

Merlin rolled over onto his belly, tipping the book up so Will could see the cover. “There you are,” he said, tapping the title. “Go on. Say what you see.”

Will rolled his eyes. “What's it say?”

“ _Discourses on Natural Histories_.”

“What’s a natural history?”

Merlin gave up, flattening the open book on the blankets in front of him. “It’s...well, I don’t know. I thought it had to do with animals and plants and things, but now that I’ve started it, I think it must be more than that. This series is massive. It's twenty-seven volumes.”

Will looked appalled. “Twenty-seven volumes of _what_?”

“Everything, it seems like. Anything you ever wanted to know. Anything this bloke ever heard about, and the names of the people he heard it from, and where _they_ heard about it, and what books you can read to hear more. It’s got everything. There was a entire chapter about which animals have and haven’t got bladders.”

Will was silent for a moment. “And?”

“And what?”

“Which animals haven’t got bladders, Merlin?” Will urged. “That’s deathly important for me to know, that is.”

Merlin snorted. “Erm...animals with no feet. Animals without lungs or blood. And animals that lay eggs. Except tortoises. That’s what he says, anyhow.”

“You mean my chickens haven’t got bladders?” Will shooed away his hen, which was pecking at his feet. “They piss enough for it.”

“Chicken piss comes out all a muddle, though, doesn’t it?” Merlin said. “It’s all mixed in with the rest of the droppings, isn’t it? So it makes sense.”

“I suppose.”

“Mind you, I don’t suppose this fellow is right about everything. He says in another chapter that the moon is bigger than the world, and I just don’t think that’s very likely. You only have to look at it to see that it’s just little, don’t you?”

“Maybe not,” Will said shrewdly. “Maybe it’s just that far away. Creoda’s Peak looks smaller than your cott from here, but it’s massive when you get right up to it, isn’t it?”

“How far is the moon from my cott, then?” Merlin asked, fingering the corner of the page. “That’s the question.”

“Has your fellow got an answer for that, too?”

“Maybe in one of the other twenty-six volumes. I’ll have a look and let you know, once I’ve finished with this bit about whether insects breathe or not.”

It was Will’s turn to snort. “You’re not serious.”

“Of course I am! Look, just here - ”

“Merlin, don’t be daft! Who in their right mind would want to know a thing like that?”

“I would! It’s interesting to think about.”

“Is it?”

“I think it is,” Merlin said. “What do they do, if they don’t breathe? And if they do breathe, how do they do it, when they haven’t got lungs?” 

“I don’t know,” Will said. “I suppose your natural historian does, though.”

“Well - not exactly, but he’s got plenty to say on the subject. And not just him, either. This fellow - ” Merlin dragged another book over to himself, “ - says the first fellow got it all wrong and made over five thousand translation errors, so why should anyone listen to his mad ideas about things that can breathe without lungs? And then _this_ fellow - ” he snagged another thin volume off a nearby pile, “ - jumped in to defend the first bloke and said that the second bloke had never written anything of merit anyhow, so maybe he ought to start publishing his own papers instead of tearing down landmark contributions to the field.”

“All this over a bug?”

“Well, a bug, and that bit about the moon being bigger than the world. And there was some other mix-up about him giving the wrong name for a plant...the second bloke said it just went to show that the first fellow didn’t know his material; the third bloke said it was a copyist’s error.” Merlin frowned at the volumes in front of him. “It’s like all they don’t get on or something.”

The stray hen poked around in the dirt where Will had cooked their supper, chuntering softly to herself and scratching up crumbs. Merlin rolled over onto his back again and propped the book open on his chest, the leather-coated boards of the cover digging into his breastbone. The tome was reassuringly heavy, as if it contained all the answers to all the questions Merlin had ever had, even if some of them were, to quote, “speciously reasoned” and “displaying flights of Fantesie unbefitting to the Modern Applicaciouns of Science.” 

Will added a log to the fire. “You can let that burn down,” Merlin told him.

“I thought you were still reading Sir Natural Histories.”

“I can make my own light.”

Will made a soft, dissatisfied sound. “Right. There’s a fantastic idea.”

Merlin’s hand stilled halfway through turning a page. “What’s wrong with it? It’s only you here.”

Will did not say anything. 

Merlin felt the first stirrings of a creepingly unpleasant feeling. “Did somebody say something tonight?”

Will shifted around in his blankets. “There was a bit of talk. Not about you.”

Merlin pulled the book closer to his face. If it wasn't about him, then he didn’t want to know.

“Just in general,” Will said. He seemed either not to notice or not to care about Merlin’s unwillingness to pursue the subject. “People have got wind of Eli and his new foreign friend.”

“They weren’t friends,” Merlin said. “Eli said he gave him the willies.”

“Yeah, well,” Will said darkly. “Some folk won’t mind a few willies, if there’s enough coin in it for them.”

Merlin tried to focus on the text in front of him. _Whether insects respire, and whether they have blood._

_For my part, whenever I have considered the subject -_

“Your mother’s going to have a fit, you know.”

Merlin abandoned the last sentence again, tamping down on a flare of alarm. “She was there?”

“No,” Will replied. “But she’ll hear about it soon enough. Word’s got round. Matthew overheard some nonsense tonight about looking for that girl, and he put his foot down about it - said he didn't want to hear it in the motehall anymore. Said we’ve got troubles enough of our own this year without going looking for someone else’s. Most folk seemed to be of the same mind - never thought I’d agree with Quinn on anything, but he said if anybody thinks he’s going slogging around in the snow looking for some mystery bint, then they can kiss his crupper.” A beat. “But you know a few will just take it outside.”

Merlin did know. He was not sure how many of them would take to it maliciously, like Aelfric, or without understanding that it was anything more than a lark, like Peter. But the promised sack of shillings would be shiny enough for both types.

He forced himself to loosen his grip on _Natural Histories_. If he tore a page in one of Henry’s books, he would die of mortification. Maybe then his neighbors would finally leave him alone.

“Do you want to hear what this bloke says about different sorts of trees?” Merlin said, a little too loudly, just under the line of what he thought would wake Henry. “He goes on and on about which woods are good for what. You can tell me if he’s right or not.”

Will ignored him. “Just because she won’t hear it from me doesn’t mean she won’t put it together on her own, Merlin. She’s not thick, your mum.”

“So?” Merlin said. He did not want to talk about this. Why couldn’t Will have just kept asking him stupid questions about _Natural Histories_? 

“So she’ll worry.”

“She always worries,” Merlin said. He hated how true it was. “It’s what mothers do.”

Merlin could practically hear the _i wouldn’t know_ , but Will did not say anything.

A long silence ensued. Merlin tried to go back to where he’d left off in his book, but he found himself reading the same sentence over and over again without digesting a bit of it. _For my part, whenever I have considered the subject -_ there was nothing to worry about, anyway; nobody knew anything, and if nobody knew anything, then nobody could say anything. _Whenever I have considered the subject -_ did it matter, if there were odd folk from south of the border roaming their woods and asking people to tell tales on their neighbors? What difference would it make, if nobody had any information to share?

 _For my part -_ except there were, of course, a few things that the more observant of his neighbors could relay to an interested party...more than a few, in fact. Moments when odd things had happened without him meaning them to, or episodes of _funny business_ for which a suitable explanation had yet to be found -

“You shouldn’t have brought that book to Hallmote with you,” Will said. “People already look at you funny; you don’t need them to be looking twice.”

Will was right, of course. But something inside Merlin snarled in revolt at being instructed to hide something else away. “It’s a book,” he said. “It’s harmless.”

“It’s expensive,” Will corrected, “and it’s not natural, for a place like this. How many people in this place do you think have even seen a book before? How many of them do you think could read one?”

Merlin clenched his teeth together. “I don’t know.”

“I do,” Will said, and held up two fingers. “You and your mum. It’s bad enough everybody knows you two have got your letters, without you carting your fancy books around and _making your own light_ , right out in the yard where anyone can see it.”

Merlin sat up. He clutched the book in his lap, his pulse beating angrily under his fingers. “What exactly is wrong with me having my letters?”

Will flicked a warning glance in the direction of Henry’s curtain, then he sat up too, more carefully. “I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it,” he said, in a low voice. “I said it isn’t _normal_ , around here, so you oughtn’t go shouting about it from the top of the ridge.” 

“I do not _shout it_ from the top of the ridge,” Merlin gritted out. “I have never. I just want to read a simple book.” The fire burped angry sparks across the floor, startling away the hen. Merlin clamped down hard on the boiling spring inside him. “Why can’t I just read a simple book?”

“Why do you _need_ to?" Will asked. "Why risk - what are you wasting your time on all this for, Merlin?” 

Merlin stared at the book in his lap, his face burning. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

Merlin looked up. Will stared back, wearing his most bullheaded look. The stoked fire lit his eyes in an image eerily similar to the illustrations Merlin had just seen in a previous chapter on astronomy - _celestial coronae, or: stars which, falling, appear suddenly in the night._

“I just - like them,” Merlin said. It was only half of a lie, but it tasted rotten. “I just like them, Will. Isn’t that enough?”

Will’s face darkened. 

Merlin felt an immediate swell of shame. Will would never admit to having his feelings hurt. He had never seen a feeling before in his life, or that was the official story, at least. But Merlin knew better than to trust Will's deflections and diversions and don’t-asks. Will might have left his father’s hauberk hanging at home in a corner, but he was armored up every day of his life, and Merlin knew better than anyone that there was a person under there. Merlin had seen Will when he was happy - really, deliriously happy; not this more recent assemblage of superficial smiles and smart remarks, and, even if it had been years ago, Merlin remembered what that had been like, and how it had sounded, and how Will had looked the way Merlin’s magic sometimes felt, bright and warm and lit up from the inside. He knew that Will was capable of joy. He knew that Will was capable of other, more difficult feelings, too, though that was scarcely a more closely-guarded secret than Merlin’s magic, as far as Will was concerned, and not to be discussed with anyone, ever.

They were supposed to keep secrets for each other, not from each other. Will deserved more from Merlin than a half-baked lie. He lied for Merlin every day.

Merlin started over. “I like them,” he said, with some difficulty, “because it’s - nice, learning something new, and - being somewhere else. It’s brilliant.” The book lay heavy on his lap, its spine digging into his ankle. “It’s like - you get lost. You forget where you are.”

Will watched him uncertainly. “I don’t see what’s so brilliant about that.”

“It’s - now, come on, Will, you complain about this place every day. You’ve never wished you were somewhere else?”

“When you and Henry are nattering on about books, yeah, always.”

Merlin gave him a look. Will’s face immediately became defensive. “Well, I don’t know what you mean!” The hen, startled, flapped away from where she had been pecking under Will’s knee. “I don’t see why you’d want to go and - ” his frown deepened “ - and get _lost_ anywhere. Especially not with a bunch of lettered fellows who sit around thinking about how big is the moon and - and having rows about how to say _dandelion_ in ten different languages - ”

Merlin rubbed his forehead. “I think it was ground-ivy,” he murmured.

“There,” Will exclaimed, stabbing a finger at Merlin. “You see? That. What in the name of Lugh do you need to know that for?”

“I don’t _need_ to know it for anything!” Merlin replied. “But it’s interesting! I like that sort of book, where I can find out something new.” 

“You like every sort of book, Merlin,” Will retorted. “The _poetry_? Every time Henry quotes some silly nonsense at you, you look like you’ve left for the moon.”

“That’s - ” Merlin felt himself flushing. “That’s different.”

“How’s it different?”

“I like the poetry because...”

“Because _why_?”

“Because...I just - I like to hear something that makes the world look - ” 

_Beautiful,_ he thought. 

“Better,” he finished. “Better than it is.”

Will shook his head slowly. He did not need to say anything to communicate what he was thinking. Merlin knew perfectly well how Will felt about that sort of thing. 

_Things are what they are._

“Listen,” Merlin tried finally. “Aren’t you curious about anything at all? Haven’t you ever wanted to know something?”

“I’ve never wanted to know whether insects breathe or not.”

Merlin blew out a sigh. “It doesn’t have to be that. It could be anything. Don’t tell me you never wonder about things, I know that isn’t true.”

Will crossed his arms over his stomach, the warming rock folded between them. “Oh, bugger it all, Merlin. I wonder about loads of things. Not the sort of things anybody’s going to write a book about.”

“This fellow wrote a book about which animals have and haven’t got bladders! People write books about all sorts of things!”

Will sat up straighter. “But do all sorts of people write books?” he said, his tone edging into something sharp and discerning. “What do you care what some rich nob has to say about chicken bladders? You’re slaughtered more chickens than he’s seen in his life, I’ll wager.”

Merlin took a deep breath. He understood Will better than anybody he knew and loved him better than anybody he could ever imagine meeting, but occasionally, once in a great while, he sympathized with his neighbors’ frequently expressed desire to bop him over the head. “It’s not all chicken bladders and shillings,” he said, with forced calm. “It’s - all sorts of new things. Anything you ever wanted to know. And you can find out everything about it, just by looking in a book, and it doesn’t cost anything - ”

“- it _does_ cost something, you’re just not paying for it because Henry’s letting you have your little look for free - ”

“I _know_ that!” Merlin snapped, clamping down on a surge of frustration. “I know that, all right? Henry’s let me have my little look, but soon he'll be leaving, and he’ll take all of his books with him when he goes and I’ll never see another one again and that will be that, won’t it? I can go back to worrying about who’s going to sell me for drinking money.” Merlin's grip on _Natural Histories_ tightened, the thick leather squeaking under his fingers. “So, not that you care, but I’m going to try to enjoy myself while I can. That's if you don’t mind, of course.”

There was a protracted moment of silence. 

“I never said I minded,” said Will.

“You - ” Merlin groaned, covering his eyes and dragging his hands down his face. He let them fall into his lap, landing with a soft smack against _Natural Histories’_ smooth interior. “I wish someone _would_ sell me for drinking money,” he said to Will. “I wouldn’t even try to set them on fire or anything. Just so long as it got me away from you.”

Will smiled his crooked little smile.

Merlin sighed and slumped over his book. He’d been having a lovely day before, and now he just wanted to sleep. He could always count on his neighbors, it seemed, to keep him from getting too comfortable. 

Will gestured at the book. “I don’t suppose your learned friend there has anything to say on the subject of nosy neighbors.”

Merlin felt the corners of his mouth twitch up, despite himself. “No,” he murmured. “Nothing.”

Will scoffed. “Imagine that. Twenty-seven volumes and not a single useful word in the bunch.”

“You’re just cross because you can’t read it.”

“I'm not,” Will replied, with a perfect shrugging honesty. “But you can keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel better.”

Will’s chicken scratched up little puffs of frozen dirt around the edge of the fire, tossing specks of soil onto the open pages of _Natural Histories_. Merlin brushed silt from the thin parchment, surveying the remainder of Henry’s chests gloomily. “I wish he’d stay a bit longer.”

“You wish his books would stay a bit longer, you mean.”

Merlin shrugged, swallowing his self-consciousness. “Maybe.”

Will scrutinized Merlin. Merlin squirmed under his gaze. He felt he ought to clarify _‘I’m not going to steal one’_ or _‘I’m not going to lock myself in Henry’s cart and stow away to Midwinter Market’_ before Will got any funny ideas, but Will did not ask him any more questions. 

Will did not say much of anything else at all, in fact, beyond a mild, “It’s late,” after a few silent minutes had passed and they could tell there was nothing more to be discussed. And then, once they had settled down into their bedrolls - he tossed Merlin a simple _’night_ , leaving Merlin to his book.

Merlin looked back down at _Natural Histories._ He was exhausted. All he wanted to do was curl up in his pallet and close his eyes and forget that his neighbors existed. He could pretend to be somewhere else while he slept, too, and that would be almost as good as losing himself in a book, at least until familiar faces elbowed their way into his dreams and turned them into nightmares about men with big hats who dragged him out of his house and carted him away from his mother.

But he would just try to finish this last line. Just one more line.

_While I leve it to others to form what Opinion they please, for my part, whenever I have considered the Subject, I have ever felt persuaded -_

Merlin blinked heavily. He refocused his eyes and set his finger under the letters, mouthing the words to himself.

_I have ever felt persuaded that there is nothing impossible in nature._

The last thing Merlin saw before falling into a cold and lumpy sleepy was Will, the warming rock settled on his chest and the stray chicken puttering around his feet, his fire-flecked comet eyes wide-awake and lost in thought, staring at the ceiling.

***

Henry was still snoring behind the curtain when Merlin awoke the next morning. Will was nowhere to be seen. Merlin shrugged into his coat and went searching for a hat, tripping over Will’s rock in the process, which was lying half-buried under a puddle of abandoned blankets. Merlin laid a hand on it out of curiosity. He was surprised and a little impressed to find that it was still glowing - if Merlin hadn’t known better, he would have thought it had just rolled out of the fire.

Merlin hadn’t thought it was possible for his influencing to last this long, but then - he thought back to his book last night, and remembered - _nothing is impossible in nature._ Maybe _Natural Histories_ had the right of it, after all. 

Merlin wondered what else he could do that he didn’t know about yet.

Outside, Merlin detoured away from the route to his own morning round and followed a deep set of prints around the side of Will’s house. In the yard, Henry’s repaired wagon wallowed axle-deep in yesterday’s snow. The back door had been hinged down to become the entry ramp, cleaving a sharp canyon out of the drifts.

Merlin scooted up the ramp and crouched at the entrance to the empty wooden chamber. “Good morning," he said bemusedly.

“Morning,” said Will. He was squatting at the back of the wagon, squinting at the vaulted roof as if there were some kind of message scrawled up there for him.

Merlin looked carefully around, in case he had missed some runaway hen which had wandered in and necessitated a retrieval. “What are you doing?”

Will shrugged vaguely. “I had a bit of a think this morning,” he said, answering none of Merlin’s questions. “Send Henry out here when he wakes up, will you?”

Merlin’s eyebrows rose. He would dearly have liked to ask another question, or ten, but Will had the face on that he wore when he was measuring things in his head, and badgering him to the point where he forgot a number was the fastest way Merlin knew to get flicked between the eyes.

“Right,” Merlin said. “I’ll just...go and do my round, then.”

Will spared him a wave, but did not actually say goodbye. Merlin hopped off the edge of the ramp and and retraced his steps back out to the street, making for the far side of the village.

His own round took him hardly any time at all, since Merewyn and Jesmaine, like Henry, had insisted on pitching in, though unlike Henry, they were actually helpful when it came to turning out the animals and distributing feed. Merlin dodged his mother’s all-too-knowing questions about the wool she’d sent him away with yesterday, then felt appropriately guilty about it and volunteered to go and help Mot Mauthilde with her own round, after his mother mentioned that the older woman hadn’t been feeling well yesterday. 

This, Merlin regretted almost immediately, since Mauthilde was feeling at least well enough to shout stringently specific directives at him through the window, and by the time he’d finished clearing snow from the byre yard, pitching feed, collecting eggs, and emptying and refilling frozen water buckets to her exact specifications, the weak midwinter sun had climbed a quarter of the way across the sky. Merlin was burning up under his coat by the time he finally bade Mot Mauthilde a grudging farewell, and he left her house wearing half the layers he had started with that morning, knowing he would regret it as soon as he stopped sweating.

When he returned to Will's cott, Merlin was nearly mowed down by Henry, who burst through the front door in a flurry of motion, going the opposite way in a hurry. Merlin stumbled back into a drift. “Henry!”

Henry slipped a little on the ice in front of the threshold. “Oh! Merlin! Good morning!”

“Good morning,” Merlin replied. Henry was wrapped in so many layers that Merlin could not tell where his arms ended and his torso began. The beaver cap was pulled low over his eyebrows and a thick scarf covered the remainder of his face, leaving only his perpetually cheery eyes exposed. “Where are you off to?”

Henry rubbed his mittened hands together. “Where else but an adventure, my boy?”

“An adventure?”

“Some of those delightful fellows I met at the tavern the other night are taking me on a bit of a tour. We worked out a little agreement - a few more stories from me in exchange for a few lessons in husbandry from them.”

Merlin did not even bother explaining once again that the motehall was not a tavern - he was too busy wondering what Henry had actually signed up for. Husbandry could mean anything from filling hay racks to driving hogs through the woods in search of better pannage, and Henry was not dressed appropriately for either of those activities, or for any of the potential in-betweens. But Merlin had the impression that Henry would be delighted to dirty the trim on his cloak, if it meant he could be kicked by a cow and live to tell about it.

“Did Will find you?” Merlin asked. “He was looking for you this morning.”

“Oh, yes! He did. I’ve commissioned him to do a bit more work on my cart.”

Merlin blinked. “What for? It’s mended, isn’t it?”

“Oh, it is, yes. Pulls like a dream. But young William thinks he can fix it so that I make it to Midwinter Market without losing any of my commission work to banditry.”

That was a new one on Merlin. “How’s that?”

Henry shrugged, his mind obviously bounding away to the barns in the company of his new friends. “Haven’t the foggiest. He seemed very confident about it, though - I told him to have at it. It’s well worth the extra fee, if he’s right.” He clapped Merlin on the shoulder. “I’ll be back by sundown - help yourself to some breakfast - the two of you never eat in the mornings; I wonder you don’t waste away!”

Merlin watched him scamper away in the direction of the motehall (or, as Henry would have put it, the tavern) and then wandered around the corner of the house. The yard had been shoveled out in a rough circle around Henry’s wagon, leaving behind a wide swath of packed snow streaked with frozen dirt and fragments of torn-up grass. The clearing was filled with all the telltale indicators of a job in progress - sawblocks and timber and carpenter’s chest and all. 

Merlin climbed up the ramp of the wagon again, crouching in the doorway. “You’ve been busy, I see.”

“One of us ought to be,” replied Will. He stretched a knotted measuring string from one side of the wagon’s interior to the other. “The other is too busy reading about bug lungs.”

There was no one else in the little wagon to see - Merlin snagged the string with his magic and whipped the far end of it at Will’s nose. Will, too experienced with this sort of thing to be caught out that easily, simply let go of his end and ducked. The measuring cord sailed over his shoulder and into Merlin’s own face. 

“That’s what you get,” Will said. “Hold that end for me before I toss you out on your lazy behind.” 

Merlin picked up one looped end of cord and held it against the wall. “What are you going to do to this poor cart?”

“You’ll see,” said Will. “Not there - put it in the joint between the rear and side walls, there, up just before the barrel roof starts.”

Merlin moved the string accordingly. Will pulled the string taut at his end and tied an additional knot, marking the length of the wagon vault from back to front, though why he needed to do so at the height of the ceiling Merlin did not know. They did the same on the other side of the wagon, and then in the back over the door, after which Will retrieved his string with a proprietary tug and snapped the looped end in Merlin’s direction, shooing him down the ramp. “That’s enough. Go read a book.”

“Hang on - ” 

“Weren’t you saying you’ve got about a hundred piles to go through before Henry leaves? Go and cuddle _National Histories_ some more and let me work.”

“It’s _natural_ histories _._ ”

“Whatever it’s called.”

“You don’t want any help?”

“I’ll come and find you when I need someone to hammer his own thumbs.” Will yanked the hat off Merlin’s head. “And give me back my hat.”

“My mother made that for you.”

“So?”

Merlin hopped off the ramp and crunched down into the snow. “I’m fairly certain that entitles me to borrow it.”

“I’m fairly certain it doesn’t fit over your ears, though.”

Merlin risked a second twinge of magic to lob a faceful of snow into the wagon, where it splattered harmlessly against the wooden boards behind Will’s own ears, which were, lamentably, as normal-sized as they came.

***

Henry returned after evening chores, his cap askew, trailing straw from the lining of his cloak, which he had shucked and tied around his waist like an absurdly expensive apron. He was beaming and sweaty, and he had no end of excited reports to make about his day, which, from what Merlin could make out, had consisted of trimming goat hooves, mucking three different byres, and then walking a lame cow up and down the Ea to ice its feet. His toes were bruised and he had been kicked not just once, but three times, yet his rough handling seemed only to have increased his passion for agriculture.

“I haven’t had much to do with goats until now,” he enthused over dinner, the three of them clustered together on the floor around the fire. “Never knew anyone who kept them - they’re marvelous creatures, aren’t they? Such personality! I wonder you don’t keep any yourselves.”

“Had some,” Will mumbled into his makeshift pillow. He had come in only minutes ago, after an entire day spent doing gods-knew-what sort of carpentry in the yard, and had spared a single, longing look at his own bed (Henry’s for the duration) before collapsing onto his sleeping pallet on the floor. “Got stolen.”

“Oh dear,” Henry said. “That’s a shame.”

“It is,” Merlin nodded. “I’d been telling William to get into goats for years.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because,” Merlin said, popping a piece of bread into his mouth. “They suit him. They’re loud, and ornery, and they don’t listen to anybody.”

Will dragged his head up from his rolled-up coat. “No,” he said, with as much dignity as anyone could muster with their hair sticking up like that. “They’re clever and dead useful.”

Merlin gave Henry a meaningful glance. “You see? Ornery.”

Henry smiled. Will did not appear to have the energy to argue, but rather dropped his head back down onto his coat with an unintelligible grumble. Merlin kicked a blanket over him and returned to his book, holding the hunk of bread out to one side to avoid dropping crumbs on the pages. 

“Interesting choice,” Henry murmured, leaning over Merlin’s shoulder. “But - this is your own land, isn’t it?” Henry turned the front cover over, revealing the title plate _Politiks and Peples in the Kyngdom of Cynric and his Heirs, cronicled by Sir Euremar de Teise._ “Surely we can find something more interesting for you.”

“No, it’s all right. I think it’s very interesting, actually, to see what other people say about us.” Merlin re-opened the book to the page he’d been reading. “And it’s funny, seeing where they’ve got turned round...like there’s a bit here about the First Aedrecyng that says he had one son, and then the author builds out the rest of the royal family tree from there, but if you asked anyone from round here, you would know that he had two.”

“Two?” Henry narrowed his eyes at the book as if it had tricked him in some way. “You don’t say!”

“Yes. I mean, the second one was sort of disowned, I suppose, so maybe this author doesn’t count him, but people always tell the story with two.”

“ _Two_ sons, you say,” Henry muttered, fumbling for his little notebook, “imagine, missing a detail like that - do tell me more, Merlin; you won’t mind if I take this down - ?”

“No, of course not, it’s only a story,” Merlin said, smiling. “So, erm - the first Aedrecyng - that’s the first person to sit on the throne at Carr Naeddran, I mean - he was the first king to rule over this land, back when it was, you know, a load of nomadic clans wandering about lost in the fens. He did have a firstborn son, Cynweald, who succeeded him and had heirs and went down in the historical record and all that. He’s in here,” Merlin added, pointing to the book on his lap, “so Sir Euremar got that much right. But the way we tell it, he also had a second son, who wasn't quite so favored.”

“Recipe for trouble, that."

“Oh, you’ve heard this story before?”

“The trials and tribulations of the younger sibling are ancient and universal, Merlin.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it,” Merlin said. “Anyhow - he was so disfavored that we don’t even know his name. He’s just called the Second Son, in all the stories I've heard."

“Naturally.”

“He was the crafty one - had to be, I suppose. And Cynweald was the strong one. He weighed as much as a giant and had a belt that was wide enough to wrap around the White Mountain twice. Supposedly you can still see his footprints in the stones outside Carr Naeddran, and when it rains they fill up with water deep enough for swimming.” 

“ _Do_ they?” Henry asked, fascinated. 

“Well, I don’t know; I’ve never been there.” Merlin took a bite of his bread. “So - the two brothers didn’t get on at all. The only thing they had in common was that they were both greedy, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s lived here for half a minute - ”

Will made a stifled noise of agreement from somewhere inside his rolled-up coat and gave Merlin a sleepy thumbs-up. Henry scribbled away. “Fascinating - and what became of them?”

“Well, as I said, it’s only a legend, but the story goes that on the day Cynweald was to be crowned king, he demanded tributes from all the surrounding clans. So the clan leaders went round collecting contributions - ”

“ - _extorting_ \- ” came a muffled correction from Will’s mound of blankets.

“ - essentially - and each clan sent a ship laden with riches down the river to Cynweald’s territory. But the night before the coronation, the Second Son nicked his brother’s big belt and used it to lash the tribute ships together, and he sailed the entire convoy down the river so he could take the treasure for himself.”

Henry made a note in his journal, shaking his head. “And all of this was passed over - I don’t know _what_ research has come to these days, I can’t understand it - but go on, lad, don’t mind me; what happened then?”

Merlin thought back to nights in the motehall, when he and Will and the rest of their agemates had been much younger, listening to Ellinor's mother telling animated stories around the hearthfire. “Well, when Cynweald realized he had lost all of his treasure, he was a bit narked off, you can imagine. He threw a little fit and slammed his fist into the ground and shattered the stones for miles around, and then he used those stones to build the fortress at Carr Naeddran.”

“And our duplicitous younger sibling - ”

“Well, his ships got caught in Cynweald’s little earthquake, and they ran aground and sank. Every last coin spilled into the water, so that the river dammed up and turned into a lake.” Merlin tilted _Politiks and Peples_ up for Henry to see. “You can see it on the map here, actually. It empties into almost all the rivers in this kingdom. It even has a limb feeding into the Ea, which you were wading in earlier, I think.” Merlin smiled at the image of Henry leading a bellowing cow up and down the river's icy banks. 

“I was indeed,” Henry said, studying the map. He pointed at the lake. “They’ve not labeled it?” 

Merlin wasn’t surprised. It didn’t seem like the author had spent all that much time actually exploring the country he’d determined to write a book about. “It’s properly called the Solmere." Merlin told Henry. "Supposedly so much gold spilled into it that it looks the sun is shining up at you from under the water.” Disappointingly, the limner’s drawing of the lake was painted the same weak blue as the remaining bodies of water on the map. Only when Merlin tilted the book at just the right angle did the hearthfire lend the ink a slight tinge of gold. “Mostly people here just call it Larceny Lake, though.”

“Larceny Lake,” Henry murmured. “Of course.” He jotted down a few more notes, sweeping his quill across the page with a zip that sprayed a minuscule splatter of ink over his already dirtied cloak. “Fascinating. And to think, not a word of it recorded in here.” Henry shook his head at _Politiks and Peples_. “I’m beginning to have second thoughts about that one. I thought it might sell better here, given the subject matter, but goodness me - it’s terribly inaccurate, isn’t it?”

Merlin waved his hands noncommittally. “More like...incomplete.”

“You’re too generous, my lad.” Henry fanned his journal in the air to dry the ink. “Now - indulge a silly scholar for a moment - what other local legends can you relate that our friend Sir Euremar missed?”

Merlin wiped breadcrumbs off his fingers. “Well...there’s a bit more to the one I just told you, I suppose.”

“Is there now?” Henry dunked his quill back into the inkpot with a little too much zeal, setting it wobbling. “Do tell.”

Merlin hesitated, glancing at the pile of blankets on the other side of the fire. Will had not made a sound since his last muzzy contribution, and he was still lying in the exact same position as before, under his blankets with his face buried in his pillow, like he had been too tired to even roll himself over. He was really asleep now, Merlin decided, or he would certainly have lodged some sort of protest.

“The rest of it’s not historical at all,” Merlin said, almost apologetically. “Just, you know. Bedtime stories. But...”

The fire spat a burst of sparks onto the leather of Merlin’s shoe; he drew his foot back. “The rest of the legend says that one day, the dam will break, and the rivers of this country will run with gold, and the brothers’ wealth will roll downstream and into the hands of the people. Castles will be cast down, and overlords will be overthrown, and the only reigning power in this land will be that of peace and prosperity.”

Henry seemed too absorbed to have taken any notes, a pendulous bead of ink dripping from the tip of his quill and splattering onto the page below. 

Merlin glanced at Will. The blanket that Merlin had kicked over him rose and fell in a slow, barely perceptible rhythm. “Some people…" Merlin paused, thinking it over. “Some people don’t like it," he said finally. "They think it tells us to sit back and accept what we’ve got while we wait for some imaginary reward that isn’t ever coming. They say no one’s ever ousted an overlord by lying down and letting him trample all over you.”

“And what do some people propose as an alternative?”

Merlin half-smiled. “Oh, they hardly know, themselves. Everyone thinks kicking in the overlord’s teeth is a good idea until the overlord bites back.”

Henry nodded. “And what do you think, then?”

“Me?” Merlin considered. “I suppose I agree. It’s a fantasy. But I like the story anyhow. It’s the right kind of thing, for a place like this. I like to think that everything can be made right that way. I think other people like to think that, too.”

“But some find it unrealistic?”

“Well…” Merlin looked again at Will, whose rock had rolled out from his sleeping pallet and was warming nothing but the dirt floor. Merlin felt a sudden powerful urge to nudge it back under the covers. “I think some people just don’t like to pretend.”

Henry _hmm’ed_ thoughtfully, tapping the feathery tip of the quill against his chin. 

Merlin closed _Politiks and Peples_ and laid it atop the five-stack of other volumes he had been trying to choose between that night. “Anyhow, it’s silly to think about,” he said. “No amount of sunken treasure could turn all the rivers in this country to gold. And there would never be enough money to go around, no matter how many ships the Second Son stole. It’s impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible in nature, my lad,” Henry said, and Merlin looked at him curiously. Henry tapped the side of his nose with a smile, then climbed to his feet, brushing off his cloak. “But you’re right, of course. That tale is a salvation myth, though perhaps not a classical example of the genre.”

Merlin scooted around on his blanket to follow Henry’s progress over to the bed. “How’s that?”

Henry unclasped his cloak and shook it out, laying it atop his bed as an extra blanket. “Well, the lack of a liberatory figure, for one. You’ll find similar legends in each of the five kingdoms, my own not excepted, though they are perhaps not widely known or discussed outside circles of academics with very...hm... _esoteric_ interests, shall we say - but most of these legends hinge upon the arrival of a savior figure of some sort, an...agent of deliverance, if you will, who ushers in the rule of the righteous - a monarch who emerges in an hour of need to right past wrongs and restore the land to its former glory.”

Merlin watched Henry make up his bed, not sure what to think about this idea. He knew what Will would think of it, certainly.

“I think people hereabouts have had just about enough of monarchs emerging, to be honest with you,” Merlin admitted. “We’ve had new monarchs emerging nearly twice a decade for centuries, and they always leave this place worse than they found it.”

“And thus,” Henry said, with a dramatic twirl of his fingers, “in your story, justice in this country will be meted out by the land itself. It’s fitting, isn't it? Very poetic.”

Merlin did not know about _poetry_. It just seemed like the only sensible option, if every possible king had failed them. 

But there was a certain poetic simplicity to that, too, he supposed, watching Will sleep. It was the sort of thing Will had once been so quick to rattle on about, before his father had gone and not come back, back when they had had a little more room to breathe. Will had had more to say back then, and a more hopeful way of saying it, too, bowled over on his back by the sheer infinitude of stars in the sky, or sun-addled and dreaming on soupy summer mornings, or chasing birds away from freshly harrowed furrows and running on and on with himself that _it would be better, wouldn’t it,_ if there weren’t any kings, or any nobles either, and that people could manage themselves well enough if the covetous and the cruel were made to keep their fingers in their own pockets, and that Carr Naeddran ought to be torn down, oughtn’t it, its overlords overthrown and its rocks used for bridge repair and byre building and paving stones, and there ought to be no royalty at all, just regular folk, a multitude of common, ordinary people doing common, ordinary things. Tilling their fields. Tending their flocks. Getting on with their lives - _and no lords to make you pay for land you plowed yourself!_

No lords to send your family off to die in pointless border wars, either. But that was dreaming.

“People ought to be worth the same,” Merlin heard himself say. “I suppose that’s not the thing to say…even common folk don’t believe it, half the time.” He’d witnessed enough bitter arguments between Will and various neighbors to be able to recite by heart any number of positions in favor of the current social order, and he had memorized Will’s infuriated post-row ranting, too ( _it’s like they want to carve their own yokes!_ ) “But it’s true, whether people believe it or no.”

Henry, bootless and about ready to climb into bed, considered Merlin for a moment. Then he crossed the room to his pile of merchandise, stepping over Will’s sleeping form with surprising care for someone who could not manage to collect a henhouse's worth of eggs without dropping at least three of them. He worked a thin, soft-bound volume out from the bottom of one of his chests. “I think you might like to have a look at this one next,” he suggested, returning to Merlin and offering him the pamphlet. “Now, er - you want to be careful who you go showing this to; it might be just the _eensiest_ bit heretical - not exactly marketable at home, I have to say. But I think it might be just the thing, for a young man of conviction.”

Merlin took it. It seemed more shabbily bound than the other volumes, as if production had taken place in a dimly lit back room. It was titled only “Collected Works,” and, as Merlin flipped through the front matter, he saw that there was no author listed. 

He looked skeptically at Henry.

“Trust me,” Henry said, and winked at him, before climbing into bed.

Merlin meant to stay up and have a look at the pamphlet, but he found for some reason that he was unable to focus on any of the books in his stack, even as Henry’s dreaded departure date loomed ever closer. He lay awake for a long while, listening to Henry’s snores and watching Will’s steady breathing until the fire burned down to embers.

When Merlin did finally fall asleep, he fell into dreams. He was looking down at a lake from a great height, and there was a shadow on the water, and a glimmer of distant fire turned the surface of the lake to sheets of glowing gold, and the flooded wasteland of the surrounding fields gave way to waves of swaying wheat, and the wizened winter clouds overhead splintered in the white heat of the sun, and the stones of Carr Naeddran shuddered and shook themselves free from their foundations and rolled downhill until they wore themselves away to grains of sand and were carried off on a whispering wind. 

When he woke up the next morning, he did not remember a thing about it.

***

Merlin and Henry hardly saw Will over the course of the next few days. Whenever they did, it was only in passing, or from a distance, as Will disappeared repeatedly into the back of Henry’s wagon. The only hours that they all spent together were when the light had faded too much for work to continue outside, and most of these Will spent dead asleep on his bedroll, too tired to stay up talking with Merlin and not remotely reinvigorated by Merlin and Henry’s post-dinner book chatter, either.

Merlin made a point of bothering Will every time he did see him, for the sake of their friendship. _Do you want to have a look at this picture of a tree?_ he would say. No, what did Will want to look at a tree for; he could see a real tree any day. _Do you want to see how people write numbers in Escandria?_ No, what did Will care how people wrote numbers abroad; he didn’t even know how people wrote numbers here. _Do you want to hear about thirty-two remedies derived from wool-grease?_ No, not unless one of them were for headache, which was something Merlin was giving him.

“Not very intellectually inclined, is he?” Henry remarked on one of these occasions, after Merlin had tried and failed to cajole Will into listening to an excerpt from the twenty-sixth volume of _Natural Histories_ , which series Merlin kept returning to despite being simultaneously engaged with both the pamphlet Henry had given him and at least three other volumes.

“Who, Will?” Merlin looked up from his book, following Henry’s eyes to where Will had just exited the house, newly sharpened mortising chisel in hand. “Will’s dead clever. He’s quicker than I am. He just doesn’t care for books, that’s all. I don’t suppose I would, either, if I couldn’t read them.”

“Hmm,” Henry said. “Well, that’s all right. We can’t all be scholars, can we?”

Merlin did not let this stop him from trying to catch Will’s attention with any number of interesting things he had picked up from his books, in part because he liked to see how many different and increasingly creative ways Will could tell him to bugger off, and partly because with his mother occupied and Henry off learning “Agriculture” with his new village friends, when it came to company, Will was the only person who would have him, and it did not matter if Will were busy taking Henry’s cart apart strut by strut; Merlin would still rather sit on an uncomfortable fence in the yard and read him bits of things he didn’t want to hear than go to Hallmote and sit with people who did not care for him.

How long Will would tolerate this remained to be seen, but Merlin was determined to push his luck as far as it would go. 

“You’ll like this one,” he said on the second day, swinging his feet, the dull _thock, thock_ of his boots against the fence echoing in the snowy yard.

“I think I can say with reasonable certainty that I won’t.” Will was out of sight inside Henry’s wagon, the intermittent _clink_ of mallet striking chisel the only sign of his presence.

“It’s about a group of Nemethian dissidents trying to burn down their capital by tying torches to the tails of loose chickens. What’s not to like about it?”

A small chunk of wood came sailing out of the wagon, plunging into a snowbank. “That would never work.”

“No, but it’s funny to think about, isn’t it?” 

Hammering from inside. “Mhm.”

“Do you want to hear a bit from their manifesto?”

More hammering. 

“ _Because you have failed to loke after the leste of us, we unlesh upon your Homes and Centres of Bisinesse the Leste of Bestes_ \- the least of beasts; they’ve clearly never seen two cockerels in a dust-up - ”

Will’s head appeared around the corner of the wagon, a pained look on his face.

Merlin looked up from the page, grinning at him. “They called themselves the Boiling Flock.”

“Merlin.”

“What?”

“Go inside and stop mithering me.”

***

“Right,” Merlin said, adjusting his seat on the ice-encrusted rung of fencing. “This one you’ll like.”

“I doubt it, Merlin.”

“It’s a book of Fomorrhan riddles. Everybody likes riddles.”

There was a sound inside the wagon that might have been a sigh, or might have been the drag of a handplane over a plank of wood; Merlin did not bother about which. He cleared his throat and recited the first rhyme at a volume pitched loudly enough that Will could not possibly claim he had been unable to hear it through the walls.

 _Loud is my companion; I make no sound,  
_ _And to live with each other we two are bound,  
_ _I am swifter than he, and at times stronger;  
_ _He is more enduring, surviving longer,  
_ _Often I rest; he must run on.  
_ _Within him I live until life is gone.  
_ _Without him my end is assuredly nigh,  
_ _If parted we are, it is I who shall die._

Merlin allowed what he considered a generous amount of time for Will to work this out, molding a little ball with whatever snow he could scrape away from the top of the fence. He lobbed it experimentally at Will’s chest of tools, missing his target by at least a foot. “Have you solved it yet?”

“No.”

“Were you trying?”

“No.”

“Do you want to do another one?”

“No, Merlin.”

***

“Let’s see how you feel about this.”

“I don’t feel very good about it.”

“You haven’t even heard what it is yet.”

“If it’s about some armored numpty prancing around trampling people’s gardens and sticking his neb in everybody’s business just so he can rescue a fainting princess, I can’t be naffed.”

Merlin looked down at the book. Its illuminated illustrations bore an eerie resemblance to the scene Will had just described. 

“Well?” Will demanded.

Merlin chewed on his lip. “I don’t expect he tramples anyone’s garden.”

“No, Merlin.”

***

“Maybe if you just had a look at this one yourself,” Merlin said.

Will appeared in the entrance to the wagon, crouched under the lowish doorway, a long, thin rod of wood in one hand and a mallet in the other. “Which part of ‘I’ve got work to do’ do I need to hammer into your thick noggin, Merlin?”

Merlin clapped the book closed on his knees. “I’m keeping you company.”

“I don’t need company. I need to pay attention to what I’m doing.”

"Which is what, exactly?"

“I’ve told you already.” 

“No, you haven’t.”

“Yes, I have. I’m fixing it so - ”

Merlin waved a hand dismissively. “Yes, all right, you’re fixing it so Henry doesn’t get robbed - however _that’s_ supposed to work, by the way - but why?”

Will’s forehead creased. “What do you mean, why?”

“I mean, why are you doing it? He didn’t ask you to. What difference does it make to you if he gets robbed? You hardly know him.”

A fleeting, dodgy look flitted over Will’s face.

“Not that I think there’s anything wrong with it or anything,” Merlin hurried to assure him. “I think it’s over good of you. I just - don’t understand what you’re thinking.”

Will shrugged, looking cagey. “I don’t know. Henry’s a funny fellow. I like him. Anyhow, it’s not like I’m doing it for free, am I?” 

Merlin was not entirely convinced by this, but he was also not entirely sure why he shouldn’t be. “I suppose not.”

“I’ll be getting on with it, then, if you don’t mind. We’re losing the light.” Will scooted back inside the wagon, vanishing from sight. 

Merlin sighed and stretched his legs out in front of him, resigning himself to yet another uncomfortable span of time perched on the fence. “That’s all right,” he called. “I don’t mind. Take your time about it.” He drummed his feet against the bottom rung of the fence. “Come to think of it, why don’t I lend you a hand?”

“No, Merlin.”

Merlin nodded and opened the book again. “All right. I’ll read you something while you finish up.”

“No, Merlin!”

***

 _Across North Wealas  
_ _The snowflakes wander,  
_ _A swarm of white bees.  
_ _Over the woods  
_ _A cold veil lies.  
_ _A load of chalk  
_ _Bows down the trees._

Merlin read these verses silently to himself, then looked from the book to the wagon, weighing the dangers. 

“How about a bit of poetry?” he asked, risking it.

“How about I chuck that thing in the Ea?”

“How about I chuck _you_ in the - ” Merlin shut his mouth immediately when he saw Will, fuming like a rampaging dragon, appear suddenly in the door of the wagon, and Merlin barely had a single frightful instant to realize that his calculations of risk and reward had been stupidly inaccurate, before Will came sailing at him off the back of the wagon, knocking Merlin right off the fence. Merlin crashed down into the snowbank below with a terrific crunch and a shout of mirth and all ten stone of Will’s weight on top of him, knees in his belly and slush down his back and the hat that didn’t fit him in the first place rolling away somewhere on the other side of the yard.

“You’ve had that coming for days, you stupid barmpot!” Will yelled over Merlin’s peals of laughter, mashing a pancake of snow right into Merlin’s face.

***

“Will - ” Merlin said on the last night, whispering urgently over the coals of the fire.

Will rolled away from him. “On the gods, Merlin,” he said, “I will chop your head off.”

Merlin grinned widely to himself and went back to his book.

***

Before Merlin knew it, four days of sitting on the fence had slipped away, and he found himself suddenly face-to-face with Henry’s last evening in Ealdor.

Merlin could not find the time to wander outside and bother Will. It had been late the previous night when the realization had fully sunken in, but now that it had, Merlin felt helpless to do anything but sit paralyzed in his bedroll and stare at the piles of books he had not yet opened. Today was the last day Merlin would be able to read those books - or indeed, any books at all - for what would probably be the rest of his life, barring the unlikely possibility that the dam at Larceny Lake would actually break according to legend and send piles of gold rolling downstream for him to collect. 

It wasn’t right to feel so hollowed out about the departure of a load of parchment, a single folio of which he could not have afforded if he had worked for an entire year and spent nothing. He had known from the very beginning that he was uncommonly lucky to have had this chance in the first place, and that Henry had been uncommonly trusting to let a farmer touch any of his precious wares. Merlin was not losing anything that had ever been his to begin with.

But still.

Will banged in through the door, stamping snow off his boots and discarding his hat. “Ey up, Merlin!”

Merlin reluctantly disengaged with the book on his lap - the last one, maybe; perhaps the last one _forever_. Will stood over him wearing a very self-satisfied smile, his cheeks pink with cold. In the open doorway behind him, the setting sun hung low over the western ridge of the valley, turning the threshold's crown of drizzled icicles to a buttery gold. 

Merlin’s heart sank right along with the sun. Where had the day gone?

“Not seen hide nor hair of you today,” Will said. “What’s the matter? Have you run out of nonsense to share?”

Merlin shrugged and drew his knees up, the book sandwiched between his legs and his torso. “Been reading.”

“You don't say?” 

Merlin made a face; Will, magnanimously, chose to ignore it. “Come with me,” Will said, offering a gloved hand. “I’ve finished with Henry’s wagon. I’m going to show him how it works.”

Merlin hesitated, wrapping his fingers a little tighter around the book in his lap. 

“Come on, Merlin,” Will repeated. “It’ll be here when you get back.”

 _Not for much longer,_ Merlin wanted to cry. _And not ever again!_

But he let Will pull him to his feet. Outside, Henry stood in the yard already, rubbing his hands together and shivering in his swaddling of heavy cloakage, little puffs of breath materializing in front of his chubby cheeks. He brightened considerably when he saw them. “Aha! There they are. Men of the hour!”

“I had nothing to do with this,” Merlin said, eyeing the wagon. It looked exactly as it had the day they had first spotted it foundering on the road to Narrow Neck. “This is all William’s job.”

“Too right it is,” Will agreed. “I’ve seen you with a hammer. I didn’t work this wagon for a week to let you run off with all the credit.” 

“Credit for what?” Merlin replied testily. The sun was dipping lower and lower behind the valley wall, lining the ridge with a strand of gold filigree like the embossment that decorated some of Henry’s books. “You haven’t done anything.”

Will gave Merlin a infuriatingly smug look. “Oh, aye?” He reached up and unlatched the rear door, swinging the back of the wagon down into the entry ramp position. “You don’t think you ought to have a closer look before you start making _pronouncements_?”

Henry and Merlin leaned forward simultaneously, peering into the gloomy interior. 

It was an empty wagon. One flat floor, one flat ceiling, three flat walls. 

Henry tapped a finger against his pursed lips, as if he were trying to decide on a tactful way to ask the question. Merlin had no such compunctions. “I don’t get it,” he said.

“No?” Will did not seem the least bit concerned. “You don’t think there’s anything different about it at all?”

Merlin stared into the wagon again. It was an empty box. “Have you dusted it, or something?”

Will laughed. “Let Henry have another look,” he said. “Come on, mate, it’s your wagon, isn’t it?”

Henry shuffled forward through the snow. “Er...hmm. Well.” He braced his mittens on the top of the ramp and leaned inside the wagon, looking around. “Come to think of it - oh, this seems a very odd thing to say, I’m sure it’s nonsense. But - well, I rather thought it used to be a bit... _bigger_ in here.” He looked at Merlin. “Was it a bit bigger in here before, or have I gone mad? I seem to remember having a bit more headroom.”

Merlin climbed up the ramp and into the wagon. He’d been in here on the day of Henry’s arrival, when they’d unloaded all of Henry’s things, and then again not four days gone, when Will had first started working - and Will had told him to hold the measuring rope just there -

“You’re not mad,” Merlin said suddenly. “This used to have a barrel roof, didn't it?”

He looked up. Where once there had been the loftier curve of a cylindrical vaulted roof, there was now a flat ceiling, a mirror image of the floor below. 

He turned around to face out the back door. “You’ve replaced the ceiling?” he asked Will. “What for?”

“How does it feel?” Will asked, a gleeful grin threatening to break out over his face. “Is it sturdy enough for the King’s Road in winter, do you think?”

Merlin did not know what Will was getting at, but he banged on the ceiling all the same. It did not so much as jiggle. “I think it’s pothole proof,” Merlin said dubiously. “I still don’t get it.”

“Come out of there,” Will said. “Come round the front end; I’ll show you.”

Henry and Merlin followed him around to the front of the wagon, where the old and new wagon shafts rested with their ends on the ground, tangled in an array of harnessing lines. Will stepped over these and hopped up onto the driver’s box, pulling Henry up after him. “What do you think of these, Henry?” 

Will gestured to a row of knob-like protrusions studding the front end of the wagon at what Merlin guessed would be about the height of the new ceiling inside. There were six of them in a row, evenly spaced in a straight line from one edge of the wagon to the other.

Henry squinted at the little knobs. “Were these not here before? Goodness, I never would have noticed - oh!” His eyes lit up with sudden delight. “They’ve got my name on!”

Merlin hopped over the downed shafts to come and see. The driver’s box could not possibly have accommodated him, especially when one of the people already sitting on it was Henry, so Merlin satisfied himself with standing on his toes to get a better view. 

Upon closer inspection, it might have been more accurate for Henry to say that the knobs had the Hedyngham _logo_ on, though Merlin understood what Henry had meant. Each stud had been carved into a miniature replica of the seal which adorned all of Henry’s chests: two overlapping H’s on a field of parchment, the ends of which curled up in delicate scrolls.

The carvework would actually have been impressive, had Merlin been in more of a mood to appreciate it. As it was, he fixed Will with a more skeptical look than ever. “You’ve _decorated_ it?”

“It’s marvelous!” Henry cried, to no one in particular. “Absolutely marvelous! Look at this, will you; the detail - spectacular - ”

“What good does that do him?” Merlin said to Will. “I thought you said you were going to stop him getting robbed.”

Will frowned. “Oh, yeah, I did, didn’t I?” He tapped Henry on the shoulder. “Henry, mate, Merlin’s right. Let’s just take these out, shall we?”

“Take - ” Henry paused abruptly in his gushing. “Oh, but - I rather like them - ”

“No, I know, but Merlin’s got the right of it, hasn’t he? They're useless. They’ll have to go.” Will grasped the first knob between his fingers and twisted it firmly until it popped out of place. Merlin saw that the decorative knob was in fact only a stud at the end of a wooden dowel, slightly longer than the ones Will used for regular joinery. The other five followed soon after, despite Henry’s crestfallen look. After the last dowel had been twisted out of its nest, Will twiddled the six pegs in his fingers for a moment, eyeing Merlin with the same half-smile on his face.

“Do me a favor, Merlin - could you pop back inside and run that pothole test again? You never can tell, with all this snow.”

Merlin had half a mind to tell Will to bugger off, so he could go back inside and finish reading his book, but something in Will’s face sent Merlin tramping around to the back of the cart yet again. Up the ramp he went, and, once he was crouching inside the wagon, he rapped on the ceiling for a second time.

“Seems all right, Will,” he called through the wall, his patience thinning.

“A little closer to the front end, do you mind?” came Will’s muffled voice.

Merlin shuffled forward, a muttered curse on his lips. He banged on the roof again - and this time, when his fist struck the plank overhead, an entire panel of the ceiling popped off and fell clattering into his lap. 

“Wha - ”

The wagon gave a wiggle as someone leapt off the front end. A moment later, Will appeared in the rampway, grinning broadly. “What do you think of my smuggler’s ceiling?”

Merlin, momentarily stunned, inspected the section of ceiling in this lap. The three planks making up this panel had been fastened together by some kind of invisible joinery, which Merlin had seen Will use before and which Merlin had long been convinced was a type of sorcery in and of itself. Along one edge, the panel sported two jutting tenons which, upon looking up, Merlin realized had been carved to fit exactly into corresponding mortise holes chiseled into the edge of the remaining solid ceiling planks, serving the dual purpose of joining the two pieces together without a seam and keeping the movable section locked down on one end. And as for the other end - Merlin turned the panel over in his hands, noting six evenly spaced holes lining the opposite edge, presumably for the insertion of the dowel pins which Will was holding smugly in his hand.

Merlin popped up onto his knees and poked his head into the now-exposed compartment between the arch of the barrel roof and the flat plane of the new ceiling. It was roomy enough by far for all of Henry’s commission work, and maybe a few other piles of books besides. “So...he puts his most-valuables up here - ”

“ - and everything else down here,” Will continued, “and then after some of the cheap stuff gets stolen, the bandits ride away, never the wiser.”

Merlin sat back down. He was beginning to smile. “And it won’t budge so long as - ”

“So long as the pins are in, yeah,” Will said. He craned his head around to look behind him. “Did you hear that, Henry? You have to remember to put the pins in, or it’ll pop right up as soon as someone bumps their head on it.” 

Henry appeared around the edge of the door, peering curiously inside at Merlin. “What’s that? What will - oh, my, what’s happened, Merlin? Has it caved in?”

Will waved the dowel pins in front of Henry’s face. “No, it’s your new secret compartment.”

“My new what?”

Will launched into a more detailed explanation of what he’d been working on. Merlin sat back against the wall of the wagon, content to watch Henry’s expression cycle from confusion to openmouthed comprehension, and when Henry himself clambered in to investigate, Merlin scrambled out of his way, sliding down the ramp to avoid being squashed.

“You can load it from the opening there,” Will said, “and then pop the panel back in - ” Henry was already trying to fit the ceiling panel back into place, wide-eyed with glee. “Yeah, just fit the teeth in there and pull it down - don’t catch your fingers, right - and then you have to be sure to put the pins back in from the outside, or there won’t be anything keeping it in place on that end, do you see?” Henry poked the unanchored ceiling panel with his finger, bouncing it in place several times. “Are you listening to me, mate?”

“Yes!” Henry said. “Yes, of course! But - I scarcely know what to say - " He stared at Will. "Wherever did you learn to do a thing like this?”

Will slipped Merlin a little smirk. “Not from some old book, I can tell you that much.”

“Well, never mind where you learned it!” Henry exclaimed, shaking his head. “It’s incredible! I’ve never seen aught like it. You’ve just spared me some very awkward explanations, young man; I don’t imagine I’ll lose a single piece of commission work, now I’ve got this handy feature. Truly, I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Well,” Will went a bit pink. “You can thank me later, when you pay me.” 

But he looked pleased. 

They returned to the house not long afterwards, Will sauntering on ahead of them, his father’s tool chest swinging at his side. Merlin helped Henry climb out of the wagon, offering him an arm for balance on the icy ramp. At the bottom, Henry brushed off his heavy cloak, staring after Will as the sunken sun set off one last flare over the ridge.

“You see?” Merlin said to Henry.

“See what, lad?”

“It’s like I told you.” Merlin pointed at Will’s retreating back. “Dead clever.”

***

That night, it took all of Merlin's willpower to stay focused.

The loudest sound in the room was the quiet crackling of the fire. The second loudest sound was Henry’s muffled snoring, but Merlin had learned to tune that out days ago, and he paid it no mind. He likewise ignored the layer of goosebumps on his arms, and the soreness of his elbows, upon which he had been propped for hours. His attention was fully riveted on the three books lying open in front of him, though he could not decide which text he wanted to focus on first.

He tried to force himself to continue with the manuscript in the middle, a richly illuminated text entitled _Mythickal Marveilles._

_In this Land there is a River called Eosdenn, and over this River have its Peple built and mainteined many Bridges, yet they do not cross its Expanse, without first the leving of Offerings in an Iron Trough, nor do they drink its Waters after Dark, and this is as a consequence of a Beest common to that Contree, which will most assuredly strike Feer into the Hartes of my Gentel Readers, who dwelle in kinder Parts; for these Creatures live in that Water and are possessed, when glimpsed by Moonlighte, of the outward Appearance of Horses, excepting that their Bellies are Bescaled, and their Eyes White and Unseeing._

Merlin hesitated. His eyes slid away from _Mythickal Marveilles_ to the book on the right, which he had previously started but not yet finished. Before he could even finish reading a single sentence in that tome, however, he found himself turning to the book on the left, which he had not yet started but wanted to at least peek at before Henry left tomorrow morning. 

A moment later, he returned to _Mythickal Marveilles_ , paralyzed by indecision. If he’d had more time, he would have just finished _Mythickal Marveilles_ and then picked up the next book in the stack, but Henry was leaving in the morning.

 _Mythickal Marveilles_ was good. Merlin just wasn’t sure it was good enough to be the last book he ever read. 

“Made up your mind yet?” Will asked.

“Don’t speak to me,” Merlin muttered. “These are desperate times, William.”

Will gestured at the spread of books from where he lay tucked into his own bedroll, his rock settled comfortably on his chest. “What’ve you got there? I’ll help you.”

Will’s idea of helping would probably be to tell Merlin that all three options were rubbish and they ought to be chucked in the cesspit immediately. “I can manage.”

“Oh, I see. Days on end you’ve been begging me to listen to that stuff, and now that I ask you about it you haven’t got anything to say?”

Merlin squinted at Will over the low fire. “I thought I was supposed to stop mithering you and keep my beetle-headed book nonsense to myself?” 

Will waved a hand, as if he had not in fact uttered those exact words three days ago. “I never said that.”

Merlin’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, aye?!”

“Aye, so.” 

Merlin snorted. Will changed course. “Well, if I did, it was only to shut you up while I was working.” He shifted around on his sleep pallet, resettling himself on the thin pile of blankets. “Go on then, Merlin. Last night in paradise. What’s on your plate?”

Merlin relented, resigning himself to a brief break. “Man-eating mares of ancient Thraix.”

“Excuse me?”

“Man-eating mares of Thraix. They eat bridge-crossers on the river Eosdenn.

“They do not.”

“How do you know?”

“How - nobody’s ever seen a man-eating horse, Merlin.”

“This woman has.”

“She has not.”

“She says they’ve got stringy manes like milfoil and scales on their bellies and they rise from the mist under bridges and eat travelers who forget to leave them offerings of dried fish.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it, Merlin.”

“I’ll show you, then,” Merlin said. “Look here.”

Henry was well asleep behind the curtain, his snores rumbling away like two of _Curious Calamities’_ ice floes grinding against one another. Merlin unwound a single thread of his magic and reached for the firepit, prodding at the curling smoke as if it were wet clay on the bank of the Ea, slick and pliable under his fingers. “Look.”

“What am I meant to be looking at?”

Merlin concentrated harder. The smoke was impossible to keep a handle on; it didn’t obey his commands like solid things did, but flowed around his urgings like water around a stone. He felt as if he were trying to draw a picture using wool dyes on the surface of the river.

He nudged his smoke sculpture insistently back into position in one spot, promptly causing it to drift out of shape in twenty others. “It’s a flesh-eating horse.”

Will’s mouth tweaked up at the corners. “That is not a horse.”

Merlin had to admit that it was looking rather more like a child’s vague approximation of a two-headed goose, and getting more and more muddled by the second. “It’s got legs, hasn’t it?”

“Keep dreaming, Merlin.”

Merlin released his ineffectual grasp on the smoke, allowing it to resume its lazy upward spiral. He rolled over onto his back, taking _Mythickal Marveilles_ with him. “I will, thanks.”

Re-opening his book, he picked up where he had left off. _Now in this same Land where can be found the Flesc-Eating Mares of Thraixe there is also another feersome Creature whose Nature is so hot that Diamounds, against which Fire and Iron are powerless, dissolve in its Bloud -_

“What do you think they want dried fish for?” Will asked. “They’re horses, aren’t they? I’ve never known a horse to eat meat.”

“I don’t know,” said Merlin, only half-paying attention. “They’ll be some sort of river spirit, don’t you think?”

“But how do they eat it?” Will persisted. “They’re horses. I don’t think they even can.”

“They’ll have pointed teeth, I expect,” Merlin said, and returned to his book. 

_Called Wudubucca in the Old Tonge, or Haedus Hircus by Men of a Scientific Mind, this Creature offers to those who would catch it numerous Remedyes for diverse Ailments of Body and Mind, should the Practiciouner of Physick be knowledgeable and skilled in their Preparacioun and Applicacioun -_

“What happened to that other book you were reading?”

Merlin laid his current tome flat against his chest again, fixing Will with a pointed look. “Now who’s mithering who?”

“Bugger off,” Will said mildly. He was quiet for a minute, then ventured, “Weren’t you reading something else before, though?”

“I was reading a lot of other things before,” Merlin admitted. “Which one do you mean?”

“I thought I saw you with a book of maps.”

Merlin ran down the list of titles he’d devoured over the past week. A few had contained maps of one kind or another, though he didn’t remember any strictly devoted to cartography. “Maps of what, do you remember?”

There was a moment’s hesitation. “Maps of here,” Will said. “Maps of this kingdom.”

“Oh!” Merlin said. “ _Politiks and Peples_. Yeah, I’ve finished that one.” 

A log at the top of the fire split with a pop, hissing softly as the embers crumbled away. 

“Was it any good?” Will asked.

Merlin frowned faintly. He had an odd feeling about the turn this conversation was taking. Will had never shown any interest in any of Merlin’s books before.

“It was all right,” Merlin said slowly. “Some bits were interesting. Some of it really was beetle-headed nonsense - I don’t think the author talked to anyone who didn’t live in a castle the whole time he was here.” Merlin twisted his head on his pillow of rolled-up blankets to look at Will. “Why?”

Will shrugged, his hands folded over the Yule rock resting on his chest, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. His index fingers tapped inaudibly upon the rock’s smooth surface, a rapid, unconscious tic. “Just asking.”

Merlin unfolded his book again, but he did not actually start reading it. His eyes kept sliding away from the words on the page to pass over Will, who was not looking at Merlin, but rather staring up at the ceiling, lying perfectly still, except for those restive, fidgety fingers. Merlin wanted to ask him what he was chewing on, but Will was worse than a swan mollusc that way - you couldn’t pop him open unless you were willing to smash him between a pair of rocks, and Merlin knew better than to take an approach that always, _always_ backfired upon the person doing the smashing.

His curiosity did sometimes get the better of him, though, and he was about to risk a cautious question when Will, against all Merlin’s expectations, got there first. “Listen, Merlin, I was going to ask - ”

Even in the dim light, Merlin could see that creases had formed on Will’s forehead. But when Will spoke again, it was in a resolutely offhand tone. “You didn’t happen to see anything in that book about a place called Strife’s Steps, did you?”

Merlin closed the book on his chest once again. For good, this time, he had a feeling, though he was careful not to appear too interested. “I don’t think so. I’d remember a name like that.”

“You’ve never heard of anyplace like that before, then?”

“No, I don't think so.”

“And you didn’t read about it any of those books, or anything?”

“No, I didn’t.”

There was a brief moment of silence. “Well, that’s fine, then,” Will said. “I just wondered.”

Merlin watched him from across the fire. Will’s fingers had settled into stillness. 

“Why do you ask?” Merlin said.

He had expected Will to ignore him or change the subject. But Will answered in the same offhand tone, lifting one knuckle to point at the place where his father’s things hung tucked against the wall. “Fellow who came by with that stuff off said “strife’s steps” was the last place they’d been through. I’d never heard of it before.” His fingers resumed their involuntary drumming. “Thought maybe it was just a manner of speaking, you know...like 'the gates of hell,' or something.” He stared at the ceiling, his face carefully blank. “I suppose it must have been, then.” 

Merlin digested that for a moment, Henry’s snores competing for dominance with the crackling of the fire as Merlin tried to work out what to say.

They so rarely came around to this. Merlin wished he could respond with something less helplessly hollow than _suppose you’re right_ , though he knew that the only response Will wanted from him was for them both go to sleep and pretend this conversation had never happened.

“Suppose you’re right,” Merlin said, finally. But he couldn’t send Will to bed like that. It wasn’t in him.

“What do you say to another book?” Merlin said, with forced lightness, and rolled over, pushing himself up back onto his elbows. He dug out a slim pamphlet from the pile of discarded books next to his bedroll, the one Henry had suggested to him several nights ago. “I meant to show you this one before - best do it now, before Henry takes everything with him tomorrow.”

Will groaned under his breath. “For the love of all that is good and green, Merlin, please. I can’t. Not for all the coin in Carr Naeddran.”

“You’ll like this one.”

“That’s what you’ve said about every single ruddy thing -”

“I mean it this time,” Merlin said. “Listen.” He flipped the book open. “Henry lent it me, when I was talking to him the other night; you were sleeping - he said he thought I would like it. And I did like it, but I think you’ll like it more than me, even, now I’ve read through it.”

Will sighed resignedly and rubbed at his eyes. “Right. And what sort of man-eating monster are we learning about tonight?”

“None,” Merlin said. “It’s about a bunch of regular folk who went and dug up their lord’s private holdings without permission and planted wheat upon it, and then they wrote all these leaflets and speeches about what they were doing and collected them in this book.”

Will gave Merlin an incredulous look. “They’ve all been executed now, of course.”

“No,” Merlin said. “I don’t think so. Henry says not, at least.”

“They’re not from round here, then.”

“What does it matter where they’re from? They’ve got the right idea.”

“People can’t just - ”

“Listen,” Merlin insisted. “You’ll like it.” He searched until he reached the first essay he had read, then tilted the book to get a better angle on the firelight. “This is a bit from a leaflet they dropped all around the lord’s demesne. Erm...I’ll just read it to you, all right?”

Will did not exactly agree to this, but he did not object, either, so Merlin cleared his throat.

_“Surely if there is anything in this World clear and obvious, to which one cannot close one's Eyes, it is the fact that Nature has cast us all in the same Mould in order that we may behold in one another Companions, or rather Siblings. Hence, since Nature has given us the whole World as a Dwelling Place, has lodged us in the same House, has fashioned us according to the same Model so that in beholding one another, we might almost recognize Ourselves; there can be no further Doubt that we are all naturally Free, inasmuch as we are all Relations. Accordingly it should not enter the Mind of anyone that Nature has placed some of us in Servitude, since she has actually created us all in one Likeness.”_

Merlin glanced up to check what Will thought of this thus far. His face revealed nothing in particular, but as this was the longest Merlin had ever been allowed to continue reading without having tools of one sort or another thrown at his head, he took it as a sign that he ought to continue.

_“Yet despite this, some of us wait for liberty, and behold greater bondage comes instead; for Lords, Lawyers, Bayliffs, Clerks of Peace, and Courts of Justice (so-called) do whip the Common People by old weather-beaten Laws that were excommunicate long ago by Common Sense; but as yet are not cast out, but rather taken in again to be standing pricks in our eyes, and thorns in our side. Because of the abuses of Free-quartering, Plundering by some rude Soldiers, and the abounding of Taxes; which if they were equally divided for the Benefit of the People and not too much bagged up in the hands of particular Lords, there would be less complaining: and because of the horrible Cheating that is in Buying and Selling; and the cruel Oppression of Landlords; and the Burdens and Oppressions of Quarter-Day Collections; Many that have been good Housekeepers cannot live, but are forced to turn Soldiers, and so fight to uphold the Curse, or else live in great straits and beggary.”_

A deeper shadow fell over Will’s face. The logs in the fire popped and settled again.

_“So it is for this Reason that the work we are going about is this: To dig up Cobbes Hill and the waste Ground thereabouts, and to sow Grain, and to eat our bread together by the sweat of our brows. For until this day we have let ourselves be deprived of the best part of our Revenues; our Fields have been plundered, our Homes robbed, our Family Heirlooms taken away, and we have been obliged to live in such a state, that we cannot claim a single Thing as our own; but are charged to consider ourselves lucky to be loaned our Property, our Families, and our very Lives, which cannot rightly be gifted to us by any King without first having been Stolen Away. And there-fore now we declare this all abroad: that this Land is not a Free People, till the Poor that have no land, have a free allowance to dig and labor the Commons, and so live as comfortably as the Landlords that live in their Enclosures. For the Lords of this Earth, they have rich Clothing, full Bellies, they have their Honors and Ease, and they exult at this, but take notice: that the People have not laid out their Monies, and shed their Blood, that their Landlords should still have Liberty and Freedom to rule in Tyranny, but rather that the Oppressed might be set free, Prisons broken, Castles cast down, and the Peoples’ hearts liberated by Universal Consent of making the Earth a Common Treasury, that they may live together as One House, not one lording over another, but all looking upon each other, as Equals, and having a comfortable livelihood to-gether in one Community.”_

There followed then a long pause.

“Brass-necked bastard, isn’t he?” Will remarked, after a moment. 

Merlin smiled. “Steel conkers, left and right.”

“Bet he’s real popular down at the tavern.”

Merlin laughed under his breath. “He doesn’t have to be popular to have the right end of the stick, does he?”

Will made a noncommittal noise.

“He says in his next essay here that if we want to be free, we only have to decide not to serve.”

“Decide not to survive, you mean.” Will shook his head. “It’s not as simple as all that, Merlin.”

“Well, no, now, listen - he just means we don’t have to help them along, that’s all.” Merlin flipped forward a few pages, scanning for the other bit he’d bookmarked. “It’s like Beltane, isn’t it? When the manor sends down a ram for roasting, and everybody acts like it’s some sort of marvelous gift, don’t they? But then you get yourself into rows with everybody ‘cos you keep telling them it was our ram in the first place - ”

“It was,” Will said, his mouth set in the exact stubborn line that made his fellow Beltane merry-makers want to pour ale over his head.

“Of course it was!” Merlin said. “But people accept it and say _thank you_ to the lord anyway, and that’s all this fellow means, I think - just that sometimes people do it to themselves. Put the yoke on.”

He found the page he was looking for, and marked his place at the top of a short passage. The parchment slid away under this fingertip, soft and smooth. “Here,” he said. “This. _Everyone knows that the Fire from a little Spark will increase and blaze ever higher, as long as it finds Wood to burn; yet merely by finding no more Fuel to feed on, it consumes itself, dies down, and is no longer a Flame. Similarly, the more Tyrants pillage, the more they crave, the more they Ruin and Consume; the more one yields to them and obeys them, by that much do they become Mightier, and more Formidable, the readier to Annihilate and Destroy; but, if not one thing is yielded to them, if, without any Violence, they are simply not obeyed, they become naked and undone, just as, when the Root receives no nourishment, the Branch withers and dies.”_

_“I do not ask that we place hands upon the Tyrant, to topple him over, but simply that we support him no longer. Then we shall behold him, like a great Colossus whose Pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own Weight, and break in Pieces.”_

Merlin stopped there. It was not the first time he had read that bit, and it had given him the shivers, when first he’d seen it, days ago. He’d had to go back to the top of the page and start again from the beginning, and he had read the entire passage several times over before Will had come bursting in through the front door searching for an auger he’d suspected Nigel of borrowing and not returning (“Civilized people call it _theft_ , Nigel,” he’d declared at Hallmote later, snatching up his precious tool.) But now Merlin glanced up from the pages of the book, waiting.

Will gazed at the cavernous gloom of the ceiling, his expression unreadable. His hands remained loosely wrapped around the rock upon his chest. “There’s a fine thought,” he murmured. 

But there was nothing of excitement in his voice. His melancholy wistfulness settled across both of them like a blanket of stones. 

Will turned his head to look at Merlin, forcing a cheerless smile. “No wonder you like that fellow," he said. "He sounds like just the sort of mad hopeful you’d go silly over.”

“Really?” Merlin asked evenly. “I think he sounds like you.”

Will averted his eyes at once, his face reddening. 

Merlin looked away as well, though it was for Will’s sake only. He himself was comfortable enough to see and be seen, as far as Will would allow it, as they lay on the cold ground in a cold house that once had been a colder barn, with a stranded book merchant snoring away behind a curtain in one corner and an empty mail shirt hung over a cloak rack in another, its rings tossing reflected pinpricks of light up to the ceiling. Merlin felt oddly wobbly and warm on the inside, melted down, as though winter had fled in an unnatural thaw. He wanted to fix Will with the sort of embarrassingly affectionate look Merlin gave his own mother, and he would do it, too, well comfortable with being told to _bugger off, Merlin, you daft numpty,_ except he knew full well that for Will, at least, it would just be cause for even more torturous self-consciousness.

Merlin picked up the _Cobbes Hill_ pamphlet again instead, and directed his look solely to the bold, brass-necked words on the page, who he trusted would keep it to themselves, and which Will could not read, in any case.

***

The next morning dawned stiff and ice-bitten. The cold had hardened into an audible thing, branches snapping in the wood, ice booming on the Ea, and the thatch of the village’s rooftops crackling ominously, weighed down by slabs of snow clinging too tightly to the straw to be shed, even at the most steeply canted angles. It was hard weather in which to begin a long and uncomfortable journey, through Henry had greeted the plummeting temperatures with the same equanimity he’d extended to every other aspect of his unexpected detour in Ealdor.

“Ah, well!” he’d said cheerily earlier that morning, slinging a sack of parchment samples over his shoulder and nearly overbalancing into Will’s sawhorse. “They call it Frostfaire for a reason, I suppose!”

On the street in front of Will’s house, Merlin hefted the last of Henry’s chests into the back of the wagon. Nearby, the village’s other visitors were finishing their own packing - Merlin’s mother helped Merewyn and Jesmaine settle into the arkwright’s cart, while the cloth merchant who had been staying with Ellinor’s family for a full three weeks finally dragged his mule out of their yard and hitched it to his own wagon. Ellinor herself made a brief appearance to hand over the customary parcel of farewell foodstuffs, her hair mussed and her headband down around her neck. She was wearing three blankets wrapped around her shoulders, as if she had not so much gotten out of bed this morning as decided to take the entire bed with her.

“Good morning,” Merlin offered.

“Is it?” she replied blearily, and shuffled back toward her own cottage, dragging her blankets behind her. 

Will appeared around the corner of the wagon, trailing Henry, who was swaddled in more heavy layers than Merlin had ever seen on a single human being. The stationer looked like an owl puffed up mid-hoot, bright eyed and fluffy and very round in the middle.

“Right then,” said Will, his own coat only half-fastened. He had done most of the heavy lifting himself, and he was the only one out of the three of them who had worked up enough of a sweat not to be shivering in the cold. “Horse is hitched. Think we’re just about set, yeah?”

Merlin looked wistfully at the inside of the wagon, which was once again filled with Henry’s books and bookbinding supplies. The script samples and advertisements had been re-tacked to the interior walls, and the false ceiling panel was settled firmly in place, concealing all of Henry’s commissioned texts and a number of other expensive pieces besides. _Natural Histories_ had not made it to the ceiling compartment - Merlin wondered whether Henry would make it to Frostfaire with all twenty-seven volumes still intact, or whether an exceptionally literate bandit would run off with _Volume Eight: The Nature of Terrestrial Animals_ and then spend the rest of his days debating whether it really _was_ only domestic horses, dogs, oxen, sheep, and goats who were capable of dreaming, or whether beasts of the wood and wild might also be subject to the same nighttime disturbances.

“That looks to be everything, yes,” Henry said. He stared at the perfect lines of the ceiling, his round face shiny with cold. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? You would never even know - ”

Will cuffed Henry lightly across the arm, but Merlin doubted Henry even felt it through his many layers of clothing. “What have I just told you?” Will said. “Keep it to yourself.” He gestured at the other travelers, who were climbing onto their own carts. “You don’t know those fellows.”

“Them?” Henry waved to his traveling companions. “Of course I do! We had a wonderful chat the other night - lovely chaps - that fellow there is an arkwright, did you know? Fascinating field - didn’t know a thing about it before I talked to him - apparently my chests are of a very good make, he says - ”

“All right, all right,” Will said hurriedly. “Just - he doesn’t need to know you’ve got the whole of Carr Naeddran’s treasury stuffed up your secret ceiling, all right?”

“Yes, yes, all right, lad.”

“You’ve got your map?”

Henry rifled through the numerous pouches on his belt. This was no mean feat, given that said pouches were concealed beneath at least three different cloaks. “Aha!” Henry exclaimed, holding up a crumpled sheet of parchment.

“You’ve got your food?”

Henry patted a sack at the top of the ramp. “All ready, my boy.”

“You’ve put the pins back in?”

Henry blanched. “Oh, good lord!” He scuttled around to the front of the wagon.

Will exchanged a look with Merlin, and sighed. “He’s not going to make it.”

Merlin watched the corner of Henry’s cloak whip around the front of the wagon. The hemline was matted and dirty from where the village goats had trampled it, and both sides were straw-flecked from its being used as a blanket. The bottom was streaked with a liberal coating of sawdust where it had been dragged across Will’s floor every morning as Henry traipsed back and forth from the hearth to the pantry, making eggs and oatcakes for people who didn’t even eat breakfast. 

“I think he’ll be just fine,” Merlin said, and meant it.

Merlin's mother, bidding a final farewell to her own guests, joined them. She wrapped her arm around Merlin and kissed the side of his head. “Come home for supper tonight,” she said, giving him a squeeze. “I’ve hardly seen you this whole week.”

Merlin laced his voice with a deep and patently false concern. “But Mother, what if William gets lonely?”

Will folded the ramp of Henry’s wagon up into the closed position. “Get out of my house.”

Hunith smiled. “I’ll see you tonight,” she told Merlin, then gave him another kiss and took her leave.

Will watched her go. “You’ve not told her about that wool yet, I see.”

Merlin winced. “I’m getting round to it.”

Henry reappeared, slightly out of breath. “Well, then,” he huffed, “that’s done! Can’t believe I nearly forgot the most important bit - and after you just told me!”

Will exchanged a look with Merlin that said that he himself was not in the least bit surprised. But rather than voice this thought aloud, he drew out another peg out from his pocket and passed it to Henry. It was an exact mirror of the ones fitted into the front of the wagon, with the same double-H and delicate parchment scroll carved at the top. “Keep that somewhere safe,” Will told him. “Luck like yours, you shouldn’t be driving around without spare parts.”

Henry accepted the seventh peg willingly, slipping it under his cloak and, presumably, into one of his hidden belt pouches. “And what do I owe you for that, lad?” he asked.

“You’ve already paid me.”

Henry patted his waist somewhere in the vicinity of the stashed dowel. “But for this bit, my boy, this bit.” Henry glanced at Merlin, a knowing twinkle in his eye. “Labor and materials, isn’t that right?”

“Well, I’ve discounted you that one piece,” Will said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “For…” He looked around, as if searching for something suitably discount-worthy and not at all attributable to charity. “Tolerable company,” he settled on. “And for not thieving from me, like my last lodgers did.”

Henry’s expression warmed, but he swept into a gracious bow before his look could cause certain people any embarrassment. “That’s very good of you, lad,” he said. “I’m truly indebted to you.”

Will shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and muttered something that sounded like _don’t be ridiculous._

Henry straightened, inhaling deeply, as if trying to pick out and memorize individual smells. Smoke seeping around shuttered windows. Bread browning in the bakehouse. Sweet straw trampled down into the snow. He released this breath in a satisfied sigh, and placed his hands on his hips. 

“So,” he said.

“So,” Will agreed.

“I suppose this is where I leave you.”

“I suppose it is.”

Henry looked around at what he could see of the village, at the central track leading away from the south gate, and at the motehall, empty and darkened this early in the morning, at snowdrifts slumped against stone walls and one of Stefan’s goats loose and rooting around in Audrey's browned and dried out windowbox. “I’ve had a shockingly good time,” Henry said, looking earnestly at each of them. “I know it must sound like a funny thing to say; it’s not as if I were on holiday, is it - but I feel I’ve had a little adventure, and I can’t thank you enough. I hope I haven’t put you out too badly.”

Merlin shook his head. “We were happy to have you.”

“Not so happy as I was to see you come walking out of those trees!” Henry chuckled, his beaver cap wobbling precariously atop his head. “Good lord, the state I was in! But it all worked out in the end, didn’t it?” He laid a mittened hand on both of their shoulders, beaming at them with wholehearted sincerity. “I’m eternally grateful to you both.”

Henry’s mare whickered at him. Fresh from a week and a half of lounging about in a toasty byre, she was swishing her tail and looking less than thrilled to be back outside in the wind. “Yes, all right,” Henry said to her. “We’ll be on our way momentarily, my dear.”

Merlin gave Henry a hand up onto the driver's box and handed him the reins. “Thank you for letting me look at your books,” Merlin said. It seemed suddenly very important that Henry understand how much this had meant. “I...appreciate it. I hope I didn’t get fingerprints on anything.”

“Not at all, my boy,” Henry said, and smiled at him. “It was the least I could do. It’s not every day one meets a kindred spirit in foreign lands, after all.” He clucked to his horse, snapping the reins, and the mare shook her head irritably. “Step up, lass.”

The mare blew out her breath in a snort, but started to pull. The wagon shuddered and rolled forward, falling into line with the other carts, its wheels crunching slowly over the icy ground. Henry twisted around in his seat to address them again as they walked with the convoy down to the north gate. “If ever you’re on the other side of the border, don’t hesitate to look me up!” He brandished the spare dowel at them, displaying the by-now familiar logo. “Hedyngham Stationers and Stationers Supplies, remember - you can’t miss us!”

Will gave Merlin a wry look. “Yeah, we’ll just do that.”

“There’s a good lad!” Henry’s wagon crossed the threshold of the gate and bumped down the road at the back of the little caravan. He leaned around the front of the cart at an altogether unsafe angle and waved furiously at them, spare dowel still in hand. “Until next time, then!” he called. “Take care!”

The wagon jolted over a chunk of ice, nearly unseating him. Will passed a hand over his eyes. “For the love of Lugh...”

But Henry merely laughed and resettled himself, stuffing the spare peg back into his cloak and urging his horse ahead to join the rest of his band of travelers. _“How about a song for the road,”_ Merlin was just able to hear him say, followed by a mostly unenthusiastic chorus of responses, but Henry’s voice rang out moments later anyhow, buoyant and clear as the Ea when it had swallowed its icy armor and swelled its banks, silver and sparkling under the sun.

 _“There was a wonder on the waves, water turned to bone,  
_ _There was a wonder fell to earth, water turned to stone!”_

Merlin and Will stood in the gate watching the ragtag caravan toddle down the road, listening to Henry’s winter carol until the last cart had curved around the corner of a white hill and vanished. The last strains of Henry’s singing persisted a bit longer, bouncing faintly off the snowcapped landscape, until at last nothing more could be heard from him. The only noise remaining was the lingering tune in Merlin’s head and the sounds of the sleepy village starting to wake up behind them - the crack of frozen water troughs being broken down, the honking of ducks released to try their luck on an ice-clotted fish pond, Charles’ distinctive voice shouting for someone to come unstick his door.

“Well,” said Will. “There goes Henry.”

And there went all of Henry’s books, too. They would be bouncing around in the back of Henry’s cart now, stacked on the floor and bundled into the secret ceiling compartment, jostled every time the wheels struck a crack in the ice. But for all that the ride would have been uncomfortable, a part of Merlin wished he were locked in the back of Henry’s cart, too. “I suppose so.”

“Odd duck, that one.”

“You liked him.”

“Course I did,” Will said. “Doesn’t stop him being an odd duck.”

“I liked him, too.”

“Well, birds of a feather.”

Merlin did not respond to that, but watched a faraway puff of snow settling where the distant caravan had passed.

“What’s the matter?” Will said. “You missing your books?”

Merlin weighed the benefits of just saying no, but he had given up keeping secrets from Will a long time ago. Will would rib him just as mercilessly either way, anyhow. 

“They weren’t my books,” Merlin said instead, watching the empty road. 

Weren’t, never had been, never would be. People like him didn’t read books, or miss reading books, or spend any time thinking about books at all. People like him certainly didn’t _own_ books, not when even a small collection was worth more than any sum Merlin could ever hope to attain over several lifetimes of work. 

Will followed Merlin’s gaze down the road, almost as if he were expecting Henry to come running back along it, flapping his arms and blundering through an explanation of some unlucky accident or another. “I hope that wagon holds.”

“Shouldn’t it?” Merlin said. “You spent eight days on it, with the shaft and the ceiling and everything.”

“It should,” Will said, shaking his head. “And the shaft I made will be the last thing to go, if anything. But the way he drives, it’ll be a wonder he doesn’t pop a wheel halfway to the Aedreweg.”

Merlin would not mind that so much, he decided, even if admitting it did make him feel a little guilty. Henry was welcome back anytime. And if he also brought his books with him, well - so much the better.

The sun peeped out over the wood and glared off the crest of a distant hill, dressing the slope in a flashing helm. “We should get back,” Merlin said, averting his eyes. “I’ve hardly done any work all week.”

Precisely nothing, in fact, besides morning and evening rounds - his mother may have believed she wanted him home with her that evening, but Merlin suspected she would change her tune once she saw him cart home several sacks of uncarded wool.

“I’ve done enough for the both of us,” Will said, turning on his heel. The first morning sunlight filtered through a web of tree branches to fall across his face in a chaotic, glowing geometry. “But if you say so.”

Merlin fell into step beside him. Somewhere up ahead, Stefan’s loose goat let out a bellow, splitting the early morning stillness. “Two pence says it’s got its head stuck in the wicket again,” Will said. “And he just keeps letting them wander all over.”

Merlin nodded absently. 

They walked on a little further, listening to the distant sounds of the goat fighting with the fence. “Do you think you’ll get into goats again?” Merlin asked. “You could do it now, I suppose, with your fee.”

“Hm?”

“The money from Henry, for fixing his wagon. You could buy your goats back, couldn’t you?” Merlin blew into his hands, his fingers stiff. “I mean, not _your_ goats, I suppose. New goats. Other...someone else’s goats.” 

Will did not jump at this suggestion the way Merlin had expected him to. He kept walking, his hands in his pockets, heading in roughly the same direction as the goat’s bleating. 

“Or a couple of replacement hens?” Merlin suggested. Maybe Will had given up on goats. “How much did he pay you, anyhow? That was a lot of work.”

“Oh,” Will said. “Well. Nothing.”

Merlin stumbled over a wheel rut and nearly pitched nose-first into the road. “Come again?”

“Come again what?”

“He didn’t _pay_ _you_?” Merlin turned and stared openmouthed back the way they’d come. He would not have pegged Henry for that sort. Not in a million years.

Will rolled his eyes. “No, not like that,” he said, seeming remarkably unperturbed. “I had a little chat with him before I started the ceiling, is all. We worked it all out.”

“Worked all what out?” Merlin asked. “Don’t tell me you gave away eight days of work, Will; whatever happened to labor and materials?”

Will shook his head. “I said I wasn’t doing it for free, didn’t I?”

“Well, if he didn’t pay you then I can’t see how - ”

“I’ve told you,” Will said impatiently. “We worked it all out. He was going to pay me in coin. I just told him I’d rather have it in kind, that’s all.”

“In kind?” Merlin scoffed. “In what kind? He hasn’t got anything you'd - ”

Will withdrew his hand from inside the mussily buttoned flap of his coat. 

He was holding one of Henry’s books.

Will inspected the book at arm’s length, as if it were some kind of exotic curiosity. “You’re getting awfully worked up about this,” he said to Merlin, for all the world as unconcerned as if the book in his hand were an apple or a head of lettuce. "I don’t see what the fuss is. I just thought I’d get my money’s worth. These are supposed to be a bit valuable or something, yeah?”

Merlin’s stomach gave a terrible twist. “You...let him pay you with a book?”

“I let him pay me _in kind_ ,” Will corrected. “Don’t look so wildered, Merlin; it’s perfectly common.”

Merlin stared. “Why?” he blurted.

“I don’t know,” Will said, spinning the thing around in his fingers like it was a block of cut wood. “Seemed interesting.”

Merlin struggled to close his mouth. His head was spinning, right around with the book in Will’s hand. “In - ” He could not even figure out which indignant thing wanted to force its way out of his mouth first. “You - since when have you - ”

Merlin was aware that he was not making much sense, but he could not manage to do better. “What the hell do you want a book for?” he finally sputtered. “You don’t even like books!”

“Since when?’

“Since - _what?”_ Merlin shook his head violently. He felt as if he were having an extraordinarily unpleasant dream. “Are you cracked? You’ve been whinging at me all week about ‘ _books_ , Merlin, let’s not have any more nattering on about your _books_ , Merlin, if you read me one more line from that thing I’m going to dump you on your back and beat you to death with a _book_ , Merlin - ”

“Well, you were very annoying.”

“ _I_ was - ”

“Anyhow, I figured there must be something to it, since you went on and on about it like that.”

Merlin dug his fingers into his palms and gritted his teeth. He had never considered himself to be a particularly murderous individual, at any point previous. Sometimes, gossip would trickle down Narrow Neck about altercations in neighboring villages, or arrests up in Pedders Hope, and, sitting in the motehall listening to the gory details of how Roger So-and So had broken through the wattle and daub of another man’s house and taken said man’s head off with a reaping sickle, Merlin had wondered what on earth could possibly possess a perfectly normal person to pick up a farming implement and decide that what they really wanted to do today was carve up one of their neighbors.

However...

“What,” Merlin ground out, exercising every possible ounce of restraint, “are you going to do with a book?”

“I don’t know,” Will said, shrugging. He waved a hand like this was nothing to make a fuss about. “I just thought it would be fun to have.”

“Fun to have - ” Merlin repeated weakly.

“Or I could sell it. There’s a couple of shady places down Engerd-way that’d take it for more than I got it for, I think.”

 _Sell it_. Merlin had never considered himself to be a particularly jealous person, either, but the wave of horrible, rib-clenching envy that rose in him as he watched Will tap the book carelessly against his thigh felt powerful enough to turn his skin green. 

“Are you doing this on purpose?” Merlin demanded.

“Am I what?”

It was _exactly_ the sort of thing Will would do, Merlin thought, flushing furiously hot under his collar, because it would be _funny_ , wouldn’t it, and because Merlin had had it coming, hadn't he? And because Will was an intolerable, insufferable pain in the arse, which everybody else in the village already knew and which Merlin was only just now remembering.

He forced himself to unclench his teeth. “You could have had a handful of shillings to buy another goat or a crate of hens and instead you took a book you don’t even want because - what? To spite me?” He could not believe he had been thinking of throwing on another coat a moment ago; he was running hotter than the blood in Adeliz’s stud bull now. “Because I was mithering you all week? How stupid do you have to be, Will; you could’ve made up all your losses from last month if you’d just taken the coin! But I suppose you'll get to have a laugh at little old Merlin, though, so that’s all right - ”

Will did not look offended. On the contrary, he looked like he _did_ want to laugh, which made Merlin angrier.

“Well?” Merlin snapped. “Are you winding me up or not?”

“I’m not.”

Stefan’s goat let out another bad-tempered bellow. 

“Then what in the gods’ names could you possibly want a book for?” Merlin burst out. “You don’t know your letters. You don’t want to learn them. I’ve offered to teach you a hundred times and you don’t care; you’d rather run naked through a thicket, wouldn’t you; and anyhow you say you know your own name, and ‘isn’t that enough, Merlin,’ but that’s rubbish; you only know what a ‘w’ looks like because I told you it was an ‘m’ upside down - ”

Will opened his mouth, but Merlin ran right over him. “You weren’t interested in anything I read you all week. You told me books were daft at least twice a day; you told me _I_ was daft every time I tried to show you something interesting, but now you expect me to believe that you spent a week stuffed in the back of a wagon building a false ceiling because you wanted Henry to pay you with a book?”

“Why not?”

“Because!" Merlin exploded. _"You can’t read!”_

Will smirked. “No. But I can count, though.”

Merlin experienced a vertigo-inducing wave of deja vu. They had had this exact exchange last week, had they not? “Count…”

“It’s that thing you do with numbers.”

“Sod off!”

Will pointed away down the road, where Stefan’s goat had indeed gotten its head stuck in a wicket - a consequence, it appeared, of trying to wrestle a holly garland off the fence into which it had been woven. “It’s twenty-first December, in case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Solstice tomorrow.”

“What do I care what day it is, Will?”

Will looked at him. The scattered light patterns falling across his face had resolved into a uniform brightness. 

“You really are thick, you know that?” Will said.

“ _Excuse_ me - ”

Will slapped the book against Merlin’s chest, and when Merlin’s hands came up instinctively to catch at it, Will stepped back, a strange, satisfied look on his face. “Midwinter luck, Merlin."

Merlin froze, his next indignant outburst dying on his lips. He forgot everything he had been about to say, and he couldn’t have said any of it anyhow, even if he had remembered what it was. It felt like the last time a dairy cow had caught him a blow under the ribs, knocking the air out of his lungs and the words right out of his mouth. 

The only sound he could manage was a sort of weak croak. “Hang on - ”

But Will was already gone, ambling away down the road to rescue Stefan’s goat. He would untangle that silly creature, Merlin knew, and bring it back to Stefan, and then give Stefan what-for, if Merlin knew him at all, and then go home to his own cott, to take care of his own croft, which could have had goats in it again but did not.

Merlin turned the little volume over in his hands. It was smaller than most of the books he had read during Henry’s stay, and very plain, without tooling or embossure or studs, and without any of the other decorations that had graced many of Henry's fancier pieces. It was not, Merlin suspected, new, and may not even have been intended for sale - it could not possibly have been worth even half as much as the other books Henry had been carting up to Frostfaire, and it certainly did not sport any of the gems that had adorned Henry’s commission work. It did not even have title plates. But the dark red leather was soft under Merlin's fingers, and the spine was sturdy and strong, and the cover was warm to the touch after spending an entire morning tucked into Will’s shirt.

Inside the front cover was a brief inscription:

_Merlyn - have I spelt that correctly? I hope I haven’t butchered it. I’ve asked young William, but I’m afraid the poor boy is no help at all when it comes to letters._

_This is a bit more poetry by that foreign fellow I quoted when I first arrived. I did describe a number of other items in an appropriate price range to our young friend upon point of purchase, as he led me to believe that he was making this selection for his own perusal, and I did not think he had ever been particularly taken with this sort of thing - but he was adamant that this was what “he” would like best. I think I am correct in assuming that it will end up in your hands soonest, and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed my stay with your splendid selves._

_May we meet again, on whichever side of the border proves least perilous for industrious booksellers, and young men of conviction -_

_\-- HH_

Merlin opened the book up to the middle, because it was his own book and he could read it however he liked. A short verse greeted him there, written in an inelegant hand - plain, simple, unembellished. Certainly not the work of an up-and-coming scribal prodigy, by any means - but that was only fitting. Merlin and his neighbors were plain and simple people themselves.

It was perfectly legible. It was eight days of labor and materials. It read the following:

 _Though the dark grows stronger,  
_ _Though the world loves night,_  
 _Yet the days grow longer  
_ _Spring returns, in light._

Soft fingers of sunlight brushed across Merlin’s face, splashing the pages of the book with a golden glow. _Maybe Henry was right_ , Merlin thought, as the distant bleating finally ceased.

Maybe it was a beautiful world, after all.


	8. Imbolc

“Merlin.”

Merlin opened his eyes to a darkened house.

The interior of his own cott swam into view. The room was swamped in soupy gloom, but a thin sliver of moonlight cut through the shadows and painted the figure crouched at Merlin’s head with a dusting of frost-like silver.

Merlin stared muzzily at it. “What - ”

“Shh,” Will said. “Don’t wake your mum.”

Merlin instinctively put a hand out to feel for the clay lid covering the fire. Its bell was almost completely cool. 

He pushed himself up onto his elbows and he rubbed at his eyes. “It’s late," he whispered.

“Early,” Will said. There was something not quite right about his tone. “Merlin, I’m sorry - will you come? I need your help.”

Merlin sat up in his bedroll, squinting harder in the dark. An unsolicited apology from Will was a rare enough bird on its own. _I need help_ was unheard of. To hear both uttered in the same breath was bizarrely chilling. “What’s the matter?” 

Will reeked of byre muck and cow sweat. He was not wearing a coat, or a cloak, or mittens, and his thin sleeves had been rolled all the way up to his shoulders, exposing raw and wind-chapped arms streaked with stickiness. His shirt and trousers were similarly filthy, caked with dirt and smeared with dried blood.

Merlin’s sleep-addled brain finally put it together. “You’re not still with Millie?”

Will nodded. “Will you come?” 

Merlin pushed the coverlets off his legs. “Are you sure she needs help?” he asked, keeping his voice low. On the other side of the room, his mother slept on. “She’s a first-calf heifer. It’ll take longer.”

“Not this long," Will said grimly. "The calf’s laid wrong.”

Merlin paused in looking for his shoes. “You’re sure?”

Will gave him a haggard look. “Ask me again, Merlin.”

Of course. It had been a stupid thing to say. Of the two of them, Will was the better stocksman, and, judging by the state of his clothes, he’d already had his hand in and made an attempt to put things right. 

“I just need you to have a feel,” Will said in an undertone. “Please. You’re got longer arms.”

 _I need help_ and _please_ in the same night. Merlin felt a little whine of foreboding start in his ears.

“Of course I’ll come,” he said, finally locating his shoes. He tugged them on over several layers of socks. “I don’t know if - but let’s just go and have a look, then.” He grabbed his coat, knowing full well that he would just be shucking it again in a few minutes. “Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

Will, who had already had his hand in, said nothing. He already knew how bad it was going to be.

The path down to the byre was hard underfoot, the dead grass tamped down and frozen under a cold February moon. Ahead of them, the wall of the valley rose in stony silence, its craggy face studded with clinging caps of ice. Will kept quiet the whole way there, and Merlin did not force him to answer any questions, and when the two of them reached the fence, they paused, wind whistling in their ears. 

Millie lay in the enclosure, half-in and half-out of the byre meant to provide her with some shelter from the weather. A lantern hanging on the fence of her paddock cast a weak circle of light around her recumbent frame. Her flanks quivered as the great ribcage rose and fell in ragged breaths, and her normally bright eyes had acquired a sunken, vacant look. Every so often she lowered her head and extended her neck, leaning back against the wall as her entire abdomen bore down.

Will said nothing, and Merlin kept his mouth closed, too, for a long moment, trying to gather his thoughts.

Will knew perfectly well how to handle a calving, malpresentations and all, and Merlin hadn’t been worried, earlier that evening, when Will had left Hallmote to check on his heifer. Will was just built for this sort of work, from the bottom up - he was the only person in the village more stubborn than the cows themselves, and he never flinched, ever, not when a cow was kicking and not when a swishing tail slapped bloody muck across his face. He had strong arms, and stronger legs, and feet that braced themselves in the dirt like the roots of the White Mountains - the only creature who moved when Will was helping with a calving was the calf.

But Will had been stymied tonight, and Merlin didn't feel very good about that at all. 

“How long has she been going on like this?” Merlin said finally.

“Too long,” Will replied darkly. In the paddock, Millie grunted, low and long. “Bag must’ve broken inside, hours ago. I had my hand in as soon as I saw she wasn’t getting on with the job, but I can’t - she’s a little heifer but she’s cursed strong, Merlin; I can’t get past the shoulders for anything. The damned thing’s laid wrong, and I can’t put it right. I’ve been at it for ages.”

Will dragged a dirty hand through his hair, which was already matted down with sweat. “That calf will be dead by now,” he said, sounding as if it cost him everything he had to admit it. “But it’s got to come out. It’ll kill her if it rots in there.”

Will climbed over the fence and dropped down at the cow’s rear. Merlin followed, crouching down next to Will and giving Millie a once-over. There was not even a hint of a hoof protruding from under her tail, nothing to hint at the possibility of success. 

“Merlin...” Will's face was a wooden mask, but he was paler than could be accounted for by the weak moonlight alone. “I can’t afford to lose a cow.”

Merlin lifted Millie’s tail higher to take a closer look. “You’re not going to lose a cow.”

“Merlin - ”

“You’re not,” Merlin said. He discarded his coat, his insides curdling at the first touch of frozen February air. “I’ll just have a feel, all right? Let’s just see.”

Merlin rolled his sleeves up and dunked his hands in a bucket of water that had probably once been hot but had now reached roughly the same temperature as Millie’s ice-encrusted drinking trough. He clenched his teeth against a gasp and washed up to his elbows.

“Will she stand up?” he asked. His teeth were starting to chatter.

“No,” Will said, grasping Millie’s tail and holding it out of the way. “I’ve tried. She was up and down enough a bit ago, but she’s about done in now.”

There was nothing for it, then. Merlin spread his coat out over the worst of the mess, offering up a silent apology to his mother for the state of his clothes, and got down on the ground.

Like everyone else who had anything to do with the village livestock, Merlin had had far too many opportunities to learn his way around the back end of an animal. Of the three species he’d had the dubious pleasure of exploring, he'd generally found ewes to be by far the easiest to handle, and sometimes he'd even enjoyed sorting out tangles of piglets, on the rare occasion that a sow could not manage things on her own. But calving was a different beast altogether. Even a small cow was always stronger than her keeper, and if the cow was still trying to birth the calf on her own, a person spent half their time with their arm caught in the vise-like grip of her contractions, fighting with her for every inch of maneuvering room. And if the cow had already exhausted herself, the human helper was the only one trying to drag a fully developed calf out of the birth canal, which was backbreaking, messy, sometimes unsuccessful work, dangerous for cow and calf alike.

It was unpleasant enough under normal circumstances, but the idea that Merlin would be working this hard just to deliver a dead calf cast a pall over the whole operation. And the knowledge of what would happen if he could _not_ manage to deliver a dead calf lent the entire thing a grim urgency he did not appreciate.

Millie was bone-dry inside, which did not help matters, either. Merlin inched his hand up the birth canal, pausing every few seconds as the muscles around his arm clamped down, temporarily immobilizing him. “She’s still working, at any rate," he remarked, wincing.

“Too hard,” Will muttered. “If she’d let up for a minute, I might have been able to get farther.”

Merlin’s fingers brushed against something hard - a little hoof, and then, beside it, a second one. There was no muzzle lying where it should have been, snug between the two feet.

Merlin bit down on a hiss of discomfort as the massive pelvic bones clamped down on his wrist. What was wrong here? Was the calf coming backwards?

He waited for the contraction to pass, then felt his way past the hoof to the first joint he could find. He flexed it slightly, noting how it bent upwards, with the hoof pointing down. A little farther up the leg, he came to a second joint, which, when flexed, bent in exactly the same direction. 

Oh, damn. 

He twisted around to look at Will from where he lay on the ground, half-propped on one arm with the other almost completely swallowed up by the cow. A hind limb would have bent in the opposite direction at the hock, which meant that what Merlin was feeling were fetlocks and knees. Front legs. Front legs and no head. 

_Damn_.

“The head’s back,” Merlin said.

“I know,” Will said dully, as if he wished he didn't. “I wanted to see if you thought so, too.”

Merlin would have given almost anything for both of them to have been wrong. The calf was coming into the birth canal with its front legs forward but its neck twisted around to the rear, the head pointing backwards and mashed somewhere between the calf's own flank and the wall of the calf bed. There were ways to try and correct that sort of thing, but by the time the problem made itself evident, the damage had usually been done.

Merlin dug his fingers into the cleft between the digits of one little hoof and squeezed. The leg did not so much as twitch.

 _Damn_.

“We’ve got to get a head rope on him,” Merlin said, desperately trying not to think about the calf’s terrible stillness. “Do you have anything?”

Will gestured to a thin loop of cord at his feet. “I’ve been trying. I can’t get past his shoulders.”

Merlin grimaced. The only way to fix this sort of presentation was by bringing the head around to rest between the forelegs, and to do that, one needed to exert simultaneous opposing pressures - the body had to be pushed backwards into the calf bed to make space for the head, and the head had to be pulled around to the front. Typically, this was accomplished by looping a head rope through the calf’s mouth and behind its ears - or, more riskily, around the jaw - and then one person would repel the body into the calf bed while the other pulled the head forward. But you had to reach the head, first, before any of that could happen.

Merlin palpated the mass of torsed muscle in between the forelegs. The base of the calf’s twisted neck was a wall of flesh filling the entire cavity - it was no wonder Will had been having trouble. 

“He’s massive, Merlin,” said Will, as if reading Merlin’s mind. “I don’t think he’d have come out on his own even if he were laid right.” 

Will was silent for a moment, Millie’s tail hanging limp in his white hands. “I gave her more time because it’s her first go,” he said finally. “I should have had my hand in sooner.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” Merlin said sharply. "This is not your fault." He was willing to bet that Will had already been much quicker to intervene than most of their neighbors, especially given that Millie was a first-calf heifer whose labor could reasonably be expected to last much longer than a mature cow’s. Will had been hovering over Millie like the most fretful of mother hens for the entire duration of her pregnancy, and had been teased for it on occasion by their older neighbors, but Merlin could not fault him for watching her the way that he did. Will only had one cow. He had no other dairy animals to speak of, not anymore. And he had the most wretched luck of anyone Merlin had ever met.

“This is not your fault,” Merlin said again, withdrawing his aching arm. The wind blasted his wet skin, wiping out what little feeling remained in his fingers. "Let me have a go with the head rope. I’ll see what I can do.”

Wordlessly, Will handed it to him. Merlin looped it around his fingers and went back to work.

After twenty minutes of groping and straining, Merlin was no closer to reaching the head, but he _was_ much closer to striking something in frustration, though of course the only creatures in range were Millie and Will, neither of whom had done anything to deserve it. Merlin disengaged from Millie and rolled himself up to a sitting position, the sodden headrope dangling from one aching hand. He tried to flex some feeling back into his fingers, his entire frame shivering violently as the wind cut across his skin.

“You can’t get there, can you?” said Will.

Merlin bit his lip and stared at his hands, making an experimental fist. His wrist was raw and red where it had scraped repeatedly against the calf’s hooves. 

Will cursed under his breath. Merlin flexed benumbed fingers, not wanting to admit defeat, but not knowing what else he could say. “He’s enormous, Will. There’s not a lick of room in there.”

“I know." Will's grip on Millie’s tail tightened involuntarily. 

The calf’s prodigious size was just salt in the wound, lending a bitter sting to the already dismaying prospect of delivering a dead animal. They both knew a calf this big was likely to have been a bull, and a bull with shoulders like that was destined for the plow. For Will, who kept a yoke at home but no longer had any ox to wear it, the loss of this potential change in fortunes was incalculable. 

Merlin laid a gentle, sticky hand on Millie’s rump. She did not seem to notice it, all her attention focused inside, on a trouble her limited powers of comprehension could not possibly understand.

“We could try to turn her,” Merlin suggested.

“I did,” Will said. “It’s worse on the other side.”

Merlin stroked Millie's sweaty haircoat, distracted by a barrage of swiftly darkening premonitions. They could wait until the cow had exhausted herself enough that she stopped laboring altogether, though by that point it was possible that the dead calf, already huge, would have swollen so much that they would not be able to pull it out anyway, even if they were able to bring the head around. 

Beyond that, Merlin was at a loss. “Maybe we should wake Adeliz,” he said helplessly, unsure what else to recommend.

Will’s mask cracked, and for the first time Merlin caught a glimpse of the despair churning beneath his tightly-controlled expression. “Adeliz? What the hell is Adeliz going to do for me, besides tell me my cow’s too narrow in the back?” Will pushed himself up and paced the length of the byre, churning up heaps of yellow straw. “I know she is! But I couldn’t afford better, could I?”

Will stopped and looked at Millie. She stared through him with glassy eyes, her nostrils wide, belly tensing fruitlessly. “Dead bull calf and dead cow,” Will said, sounding half-dead himself. “I worked all year just to get her.”

Wind ghosted through the fence, goosebumps rising on every inch of Merlin’s skin. “Will...”

“It’s fine,” Will said shortly. “I don’t know what I expected.”

Millie let out a quiet, pained rumble. Will was silent for a long time, watching her strain. 

When he did finally speak again, it was in a voice Merlin had not heard from him in years. “What am I going to do, Merlin?” 

The last time Merlin had heard that naked, hollowed-out tone had been long, long ago. An uncomfortable chill spread through him, one that had nothing to do with the weather. “It’s going to be all right, Will."

“No," Will said. "Don't. You’re always saying that to me, Merlin. Don’t tell me that when you know it isn’t true.”

Merlin stared at Millie, fighting a rising swell of despair. Of course. That was life, wasn't it? Millie was going to rot from the inside out, and there was nothing either of them could do about it. 

_Things are what they are._

Merlin's fingers tightened around the filthy headrope in his hands. Things were what they were, yes, but things weren't fair. Millie had only been with them for a few months. Will would never be able to replace her. He had been walking on the knife's edge between common poverty and a true inability to feed himself for years, and the last few months of misfortune had only nudged him closer to spilling off the wrong side. Every piece of progress he had ever made for himself had come undone, and every person who had been put on this earth to prop him up had left him behind - his father long gone, his mother never there to begin with - Will had been fending for himself for far too long, scraping out his precarious living entirely on his own, never expecting anything good to happen to him and certainly never expecting anyone to care whether he survived or not - and yet he still never gave an inch. He still did every damn thing that needed doing. He still turned the plow, tipped the sheep, tugged on the calf. He still bellowed in the face of anyone who told him to lie down and die. He still aimed for Denny’s teeth.

Merlin tossed the headrope aside and re-rolled his sleeves. “It’s going to be all right,” he said again.

Will shook his head. “Merlin - ”

“I’ll just have another go,” Merlin said. “She’s not dead yet, is she? We may as well keep on.”

Will shrugged, weariness written in every line of his frame. Merlin got down on his elbows again and returned to the inside of the cow. 

Resolve lent Merlin a second wind, and he inched his way up the calf's forelegs determined to make it past the shoulders this time, but despite the temporary renewal of his tooth-gritting tenacity, his luck did not improve. He tried several times to see if he could repel the body and then make a quick grope for the elusive head, but each time, Millie shoved the entire calf back at him immediately, stuffing the contorted creature against the opening to the calf bed and crushing Merlin’s wrist between her pelvis and the calf’s massive neck. There was no way to do what needed to be done without getting to the calf’s muzzle, but Merlin couldn’t even reach the tips of the calf's ears, never mind its mouth. He was already in up to his shoulder, which was burning with strain, and he could barely feel the rest of his arm.

After a few attempts, he had to close his eyes. The ground under his side was hard and unyielding, and the grass that curled an inch in front of his nose was stiff with frost. The sweet, musty scent of hay drifted over to him from the open byre at Millie’s head, mingling with a cloud of fouler smells closer to his face. Millie grunted plaintively and clamped down for a long span of seconds, sending a jolt of pain through Merlin’s arm.

“Millie,” Merlin muttered. “Stop.”

Millie did not let up. Her tail swished and painted Merlin's back with something wet and rancid; a moment later, Merlin felt Will return to hold the tail out of the way. 

“She’s stubborn,” Will said.

“No,” Merlin said. “She’s trying.” 

_Like you._

Will had asked for help, though. Perhaps for the first time in recorded history. Millie would have to take a bit of help, too, if she was going to survive. 

And Merlin would have to give it to her, whether he knew how to provide it or not.

He inhaled slowly, waiting out the crushing pressure on his wrist, breathing in the smell of the straw and the snow, the byre and the blood. 

A calm settled over him. 

“Millie,” he murmured again, diving down for something he did not fully understand and sometimes feared to look upon, something he could never separate from himself, no matter how many times a younger version of himself had begged for it to be gone. _"Stop."_

The golden sea at Merlin's center was smooth and shining, like the bottommost basin of Ea Hlaedrede at first light. For the last two months Merlin had tiptoed around this pool; tonight, he gave it a nudge. Like an oar dipped in water, it rippled forward in a gentle wave, breaking over Millie’s rigid belly. 

Merlin felt the intense grip around his arm slacken, as Millie released a low groan. Merlin, unsure exactly what he was even doing but certain somehow that it was the right thing, tilted the vessel in his mind’s eye further and poured. Millie’s groan faded into a stertorous sigh, and she slumped against the wall of the byre.

Will sat up immediately. “Merlin, what the hell - ”

Will's voice hardly even registered. Merlin was feeling warm and light and pleasantly fuzzy in the head, like he could float away or fall asleep against Millie’s rump, right there on the dirty grass. But he had something he was supposed to do, first. 

“It’s all right,” Merlin murmured, removing his arm. “Give me that head rope.”

“What are you doing to her?”

Merlin did not answer, because he did not know. Millie was not asleep, but she did not seem to be completely awake, either. She had ceased all semblances of laboring and lay there quietly, perfectly relaxed.

“Merlin, if anybody sees you - ” Will was scanning the edges of the paddock. Currently, there was no one in sight, but it was calving season, and their neighbors could and would be out of doors at all hours of the night to check on their livestock. 

“I thought you said you didn’t want to cull this cow,” Merlin said.

“I don’t want someone to cull you, either,” Will snapped. “Our neighbors have all got bigger mouths than they know what to do with, Merlin - ”

“And yours is biggest of all,” Merlin said. “Give me the head rope.”

Will passed it to him. Merlin wrapped the slip knot around his fingers and returned to Millie. Working his way up to the calf bed was much easier now that he did not have to fight against the cow’s constant expulsive efforts, though the enormous calf still did not leave much room for maneuvering. Painstakingly, Merlin squeezed his fingers around a bulky shoulder and inched his way up the twisted neck to the back of the head. 

Merlin scooted forward on the cold ground, pushing his arm in up to the shoulder. His neck violently protested the unnatural angle, but - “I think I can get it.”

His fingers brushed the curve of the jaw. He wiggled his hand a little farther, working the knot to the tips of his fingers. Rear tooth...more teeth - finally, he reached the front of the mouth, and the eight little milk teeth, and he was able to slip the cord around the lower jaw. He tightened the loop behind the temporary back teeth, at the base of the tongue. Then - “Ouch!” he gasped, and bit down on the inside of his cheek as a new, sharper pang shot up his arm.

Will whapped Millie on the rump in a tiny, lightning-quick explosion of tension. “You daft creature, let him do it!”

“Not her!” Merlin's gasp had been more due to shock than pain. “It bit me!”

A beat. "Come again?”

“It bit me!”

Will stared at him. “It’s dead," he said uncomprehendingly.

Merlin scrambled up onto his other elbow, pierced by a bolt of wakefulness. He pinched the calf’s tongue, hard, between two tingling fingers.

The rough flesh curled away from his hand - infinitesimally, but unmistakably. 

“It’s not,” Merlin said.

Will swore and dropped the tail, snatching up the other end of the head rope. Merlin gave the looped cord a hurried extra cinch, then felt his way back down to the chest of the calf. “Be gentle,” he warned Will. “It’s in his mouth.” 

He pushed himself onto his knees and braced his heels against a hillock of frozen grass. “Ready?”

“Do it,” Will said immediately.

Merlin gave the calf a tremendous shove backwards, and realized suddenly that they ought to have switched places for this. Longer arms were all well and good, but what this job really wanted was stronger shoulders, and Merlin, for all his determination, would never win a Beltane wrestling match, not even on his best day. His prolonged struggle fighting Millie’s attempts to expel him had turned his arm to roughly the consistency of bilberry jam.

Merlin forced himself to take a deep breath, exhaling slowly. It was a good thing, then, that he had other talents.

He tapped the forbidden spring inside him again, and it bubbled up, bottomless and mighty, a wave with no crest, a flood that swelled without recession. With an almost distant wonder, Merlin felt an undeniable shift in the calf’s frame, a sudden glorious opening of space as the body was repelled back, followed by a painfully slow untwisting of the neck - and then the calf’s blocky head was there, flush against Merlin's elbow.

“Hang on, stop. Stop! It’s come round.”

Merlin grasped the muzzle and maneuvered it to rest between the two fetlocks, careful to keep the milk teeth away from the walls of the calf bed. He repositioned the loop so that it looped through the back of the mouth and settled over the poll, behind the calf’s ears.

“I’ve got the rope on him,” Merlin said, sliding his hand under the sharp cleats to keep them away from the wall of the birth canal. “Pull hard,” he advised. The calf was in the right position now, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t massive, and Millie was no longer doing any of the work.

Will didn’t need to be told. He hauled on the rope, firmly but evenly, without yanking or twisting, digging his heels into the frozen dirt. 

“Come on, now,” Merlin muttered, cradling the hooves in his fingers. Will leaned back far enough that he would certainly have toppled over had the cord snapped, but the calf barely budged. It was too big, and the channel was too dry, and Millie was too uninvolved.

“For the _love_ ,” Will hissed, dragging powerfully on the head rope. “Merlin - ”

Merlin closed his eyes, surrendering himself to the same whispering calm as before, a dreamy certainty settling over his shoulders. His free hand came up to rest on Millie’s hock, while the other curled protectively around the calf’s hooves. “It’s going to be all right,” he said.

The weave of the world came suddenly alight on the inside of his eyelids, warp and weft laid bare before him, every flake of straw a fleck of sun, and every pebble a shining shell, and every blade of grass an enkindled thread. Each shimmering strand burned with incredible clarity, the cow in the byre and the calf in the cow, every driblet of ice under the watering trough and every branch on every bristling tree, and every breath of winter wind that rattled the wood in the nighttime. They were knitted up together, the fluted reeds in the river and the rippling water around the reeds, the flooded field with its barren furrows and the broken ridge of the cliff face above the byre - and Will, radiant in the yard, and Merlin's mother in her bed beyond, and every single one of their nervous neighbors dreaming in this valley they tended together, all of them luminous knots in an impossibly tangled string, sublimely singular yet inextricably bound up with one another.

Merlin struggled to keep himself from being swept away. This was nothing any human hand could create. There were no weak threads in this tapestry.

“Bugger all, Millie,” Will grunted, hauling on the rope. “Give us a hand!”

Merlin shook his head, trying to clear it. _Magic_ , he thought dazedly. How could his neighbors call magic unnatural? They were farmers, for land’s sake. They watched things being born every day. What was that but magic of the oldest kind?

Merlin grasped for the thread that felt like Millie and yanked. She bellowed and kicked him hard in the shin, as if she had suddenly remembered where she was and what she was supposed to be doing. She bore down in the belly, and Merlin’s hand was momentarily crushed between two sharp hooves, and then the hooves and the hand were both suddenly expelled into the frigid air, followed closely by the bulge of a wet muzzle. Merlin grabbed a hoof in each hand and hauled backwards, Will dragging steadily on the head rope, and Millie, bless her, lowed her frustration with the entire extended performance.

It was only a matter of minutes from there. The rest of the calf, slick and swollen, came sliding out onto the cold ground, steam rising from its lank frame. Merlin yanked the head rope off, noting with a twinge of foreboding the slackened jaw and bluish tongue.

“Hell,” Will muttered, clearing mucous out of the calf’s mouth and nose. “Give him a rub - ”

Merlin had already twisted a sheaf of straw into a wisp and was using it to vigorously dry the newborn from head to tail. Will rolled the unresponsive calf into an upright position and pinched its muzzle hard between his knuckles. When that did not elicit so much as an ear flick, he snatched a piece of straw out of Merlin’s hand and stuck it up the calf’s nose, tickling the inside of the nostril. 

The calf twitched its head, then sneezed explosively, expelling an astonishing quantity of slime all over Will’s clothes. Merlin hadn’t thought Will's outfit could possibly get any dirtier, after an entire night of futzing around inside a birthing cow, but Will did not seem to notice. “There’s a good fellow!” he crowed, as the calf opened its mouth and released a pitiable squall. Will climbed to his feet, wrapping his hands around the calf’s chest. “I see your lungs work, at any rate," he said. "Steady on, lad, I know what you’re after.”

Merlin helped Will drag the little creature around to Millie’s front end, settling the calf between her forelegs and scooting back to wait. Millie was still slumped wearily against the wall of the byre, catching her breath, but it didn't take long for her attention to shift - it was only a moment before she lifted her head to inspect the sticky form, a spark of interest returning to her tired eyes. She sniffed the calf’s head curiously, then, in a gesture as age-old as the earth under her hooves, dragged a rough tongue down its back.

Merlin watched as the cow began a more vigorous lick-down, the calf swaying under its mother's tongue. _Magic,_ he thought again, giddily. Maybe their little world _was_ hard and cold, sometimes, and certainly there were some things about their hand-to-mouth existences which had lost their charm over the years. 

But this was just like magic, every time.

Merlin looked over at Will, who had dropped down heavily on the ground, drinking in the scene as if he had forgotten the earthly existence of anybody beyond Millie, Merlin, and the massive bull calf they had just delivered together. He was sweating buckets, and his clothes were dirtied beyond perhaps even the Ea’s miraculous ability to repair, but his grin lit the little byre yard as if dawn had come early.

He caught Merlin looking, but his grin only widened. “And then I named him Merlin,” he proclaimed, gesturing at the calf. “In honor of the midwife!”

Merlin broke up laughing, the tension of the last hour dissolving like so much frost in the sun. “Please don’t. Our neighbors can barely stomach even one of me.”

“Yeah, well, our neighbors are a pack of ruddy fools, aren't they?” Will nodded at the calf, pointing. “Look at that little fellow. You don’t see him whinging about you, do you?”

The calf, its wet haircoat swept every which way by Millie's tongue, swayed sideways as it made a first ponderous attempt at finding its feet. Its legs were impossibly long and utterly graceless, and it lurched up into a precarious kneeling position as if balancing on chunks of floating ice.

Merlin smiled as the newborn went tumbling head over hoof. “He’s a fine bull calf.”

“He is at that,” Will agreed. After a little pause, he added, “No thanks to me.”

“Oh - now, don’t be like that, Will," Merlin said. "You were right. It was a four-hand job.”

Will shook his head. “Four hands and a bit of _extra_." He was silent for a moment, watching the calf struggle valiantly upwards again. “You didn’t have to, Merlin.”

Merlin held his tongue for a good long while. There were a number of possible responses he could make, ranging from _don’t be thick_ to _i didn’t have to; i wanted to_ to _you never think anybody’s going to come for you, do you?_ But he settled for adopting his mother’s mind-your-manners voice. 

“Just say thank you, William,” he chided. 

Will would have known he was being teased. But his answer, when it came, was simple and sincere, quietly honest. “Thank you," he said. "You’re a good man, Merlin.”

The wind whipping past the wall of the valley was still bone-slicingly frigid, and the ground under Merlin’s legs continued to leach heat away from his body, but he felt a warm glow kindle inside him regardless. 

They watched the calf’s stumbling progress toward its mother’s udder. It was difficult for Merlin to imagine that this clumsy little creature would ever mimic the sedate, lumbering gait of the village’s plow team, though the broad shoulders suggested that a few short years of training must make it so, luck willing.

“He’ll make a grand plow beast,” Will said, a pacific smile playing across his face. 

“Do you think you'll be able to keep them in feed that long?” Merlin asked.

Will would normally have turned his face away at a question like that. It was the kind of precariousness that pulled at the strings of their uncertain lives, a fear that only vulnerable, hunger-stalked people could understand. It should have provoked a clenching anxiety, and might have done, on any other occasion - a hardening around the mouth, a tightening around the eyes.

But tonight, Will lay back on the frosted ground and released his breath in a sigh. “Oh, hell, who knows, Merlin? She could get milk fever and die tomorrow, I don’t know.” Will shrugged. For the first time in a long time, his face was strangely free from worry. “But maybe not.”

Merlin, his arm caked in muck from shoulder to fingernails, lifted his gaze to the moon. The winter stars winked overhead, high and clear and very far away. At the edge of the byre, the calf suckled eagerly at its mother’s teat, unconcerned about how it would fill its belly tomorrow. 

Merlin’s sweat was drying fast. It was too cold for anyone to be sitting out here in the dark, half-dressed and wholly filthy, but there was a warm satisfaction in the pit of his stomach that would not surrender, even as a gust sheared around the edge of the byre and ghosted across his exposed skin. Folding chapped arms over his knees, he let the wind break over him, remembering what it had looked like before, when he had seen it in a different light, its currents luminously woven and wildly alive. 

He looked over at Will, who was watching the sky, his face clear and untroubled. The stars upon which Will had fixed his gaze were numberless, shining, a billion glittering crystals studding the ceiling of a cavernous darkness - but Merlin had to admit that he preferred his own view, this evening. 

It was the dead of winter, and their lives were precarious indeed. Nothing was promised to people like them, never, and especially not out here, where the land was their lord and the only certainty was the slow circle of the seasons. Maybe he and Will would not be able to keep their livestock in feed, and maybe the flooded winter field would come up barren, and maybe the spring planting would fail, and maybe the manor would take them for all they were worth, and maybe neither of them would be sitting here next February, waiting for the weather to turn and watching the winter roll away. Maybe all their hard work would come to nothing, no matter how many cows they refused to cull.

But maybe not. Will had said it himself, this time. And Will had never been one for pretending. 

_Maybe not._

Maybe Merlin had not been offering Will empty reassurances, before. Maybe, just maybe, it was going to be all right.


	9. Bibliography & Author's Note

**introduction: hello there!**

For the bibliography-loving folks among us (and for people like Merlin, who just never want to stop reading) - hi there, and welcome to the appendix!

It probably goes without saying that I am not a peasant farmer from the Middle Ages. I lived and worked on a smallish farm for a while, so I was able to bring a very small amount of background to this project, but the minute I started working on this thing I realized that it was going to be impossible to write even remotely convincingly about being a peasant farmer from the Middle Ages if I didn’t actually know something about being a peasant farmer from the Middle Ages. 

So, I went on a research bender. But the thing about being on a Merlin research bender is that Merlin is a relatively ahistorical show. The creators specifically state that it "isn't a period piece," that they "were very keen not to be historically accurate" - it's a fantasy world. It doesn’t take place in a defined historical century, and it certainly doesn’t correspond exactly to medieval England, which is evident in both big ways (religion??? Gaius’s suspiciously advanced medical knowledge???) and small ways ("they were throwing potatoes! it's only supposed to be rotten fruit!"). So, that being said, doing research about Merlin’s time period is more of a foundational activity than a set of rules - Merlin is not supposed to be historical fiction, which means you don’t necessarily have to stick to a certain time period or absolutely follow “true” history (this is a show where the main character rides a dragon, I mean). But I still found that personally, I couldn’t convincingly write about these people and this place without doing a _lot_ of reading. 

Not all of this reading ended up being stuff I used, and some things I just chose to ignore (again, Merlin is a fantasy show) but I also couldn’t even begin to work on this project with just a generic movie image of “medieval rural peasant village” and vague sorts of ideas about “well, you know, there’s probably uhh Crops and a Harvest Time and some Fields.”

So, this is just an attempt to piece together some of the things I read or watched as I worked on this story. I already know I won’t catch everything here - I read so many articles and watched so many videos that I’ve honestly lost track of them all; my Merlin bookmarks page on Chrome goes on for miles, and a lot of the stuff I used never made it into my bookmarks to begin with - but I’ll do my best to round up a few of my resources.

**general books that i read in their entirety and found helpful:**

  * **_Life in a Medieval Village_** (Frances and Joseph Gies)   
First thing I read when I started researching this. I enjoyed it even outside the context of Merlin fic, and I bought four of their other books after I read that first one - I’ve finished _Life in a Medieval Castle_ and _The Knight in History_ already, and I have _Life in a Medieval City_ and _A Medieval Family: The Fifteenth Century Pastons_ lined up to read next.   
  

  * **_The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England_** (Ian Mortimer)  
Second thing I read. Fantastic. Accessible, clever, super-fun read even outside the context of Merlin fic. Loved this author’s style; was actually sad when I finished the book.   
  

  * **_Life on the English Manor 1150-1400_** (H.S. Bennett)  
Older book (I read the 1965 reprint) but very detailed.  

  * **_The Middle Ages Unlocked_ **(Gillian Polack and Katrin Kania)  
I don’t know that I found this one as much of a “good read” as the others? Outside the context of research, at least. It’s pretty dense. But it was still a useful resource!  
  

  * _**Chaucer’s People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England**_ (Liza Picard)  
Another awesome read outside the context of Merlin fic - medieval history as revealed through Chaucer’s pilgrims. I love the Canterbury Tales already, so this one was fun, and useful!  
  

  * **_Daily Life in the Middle Ages_** (Paul B. Newman)  
Another great all-around resource!  
  

  * **_Those Who Worked: An Anthology of Medieval Sources_ **(edited by Peter Speed)  
I discovered this one later than the others, but it was a REALLY good find. It’s a collection of excerpts from primary sources all pertaining to “those who worked” in the Middle Ages - “ordinary people, like you and me,” as Gwen would say. There are corresponding volumes in the same series for “those who fought” and “those who prayed” - I may have to pick up _Those Who Fought_ if I ever transition over to writing more about the Round Table boys.  
  

  * I also feel like I have to cite this, despite it not being exactly a source of medieval anything - but I spent my childhood devouring James Herriot’s memoirs, and I still re-read them pretty much every year, so a lot of my early conceptions of farming and working with livestock started there, many years ago. Twentieth century Yorkshire is a long way from medieval Ealdor, to be sure, but I owe those books a lot regardless, which anyone who's read them will see is particularly evident in the last chapter. Hector (aka Herbert, Rob Benson’s reject lamb) was also plucked out of _All Things Bright and Beautiful_ , as a little tribute to that series.



**internet resources:**

I...cannot even begin to start compiling everything I read online for the purpose of writing this fic. I should have tracked every search term I entered into google as I went, for a laugh, but the list would be longer than the fic itself. I don’t think people necessarily need to know all the articles I read about medieval cattle husbandry, even if they did have names like “Temporary Freedoms? Ethnoarchaeology of female herders at seasonal sites in northern Europe” (though that one was actually interesting). And people probably don’t need a list of every single article and video I consumed about thatching or spinning or period carpentry - suffice to say that I didn’t know how to build a wheel using hand tools before, and I do now, and I didn’t even end up using that scene in the fic. But I suppose that's no more than I ought to have expected. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Here are a couple of the general sites I visited frequently, as opposed to the two thousand articles I read about embarrassingly specific topics:

  * [Old English dictionary](https://www.oldenglishtranslator.co.uk/)  
  

  * [Middle English dictionary](https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/dictionary)  
  

  * [A Clerk of Oxford](https://aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com/): source for lots of awesome translated OE poetry, manuscripts, songs, etc, plus scholarly analysis.  
  

  * [Three](https://s-gabriel.org/names/index.shtml) [different](http://dmnes.org/names) [sites](http://www.inquisitionspostmortem.ac.uk/) for name references.  
  

  * [Medieval and Renaissance Material Culture](http://www.larsdatter.com/sitemap.htm): fantastic site collecting authentic medieval images of everything you could possibly ask for, organized by subject (basically an archive of primary source illustrations, illuminations, etc - you can search for every picture of “chickens” or “baskets” or “earrings” or things like that. It's awesome).  
  

  * And you know what? Why not; I _was_ actually on this site kind of a lot: [Blood and Sawdust](http://bloodandsawdust.com/Blood_and_Sawdust/Blood_and_Sawdust_Home_Page.html) was a great resource on period carpentry, and their recommended reading page sends you to more good stuff.



**specific citations:**

Most of the poetry, songs, and book excerpts in this story are lifted directly from actual primary sources. Most of them are from the Middle Ages, a couple of them are anachronistic texts; virtually all of them have been modified by me for the purposes of this fic, whether that means they were edited to remove overt references to Christianity, which isn’t shown to exist like that in the Merlin-verse, or just fiddled with to make them rhyme or take on other aesthetic changes. Luckily for me, these sources are ancient and therefore in the public domain. Even luckier for me, I’m writing free fanfiction for fun, so it doesn’t matter quite as much in any case. But I do want to cite them here - they’re not my words, ancient or not. So, without further ado -

**ostara:**

  * n/a



**beltane:**

  * “I Have a Yong Suster” is an anonymous Middle English poem/song c. 1430. Full lyrics [here](http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/medlyric/suster.php). 



**litha:**

  * n/a



**lammas:**

  * n/a



**mabon:**

  * n/a



**samhain:**

  * Adeliz’s song (and the Cailleach’s corresponding speech) is an edited version of an excerpt from “Maxims I,” an Old English poem in the Exeter Book. The original excerpt + translation and analysis can be found [here](https://aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com/2014/11/after-that-comes-winters-day.html).



**yule** (lots of excerpts; I’ll try not to miss any):

  * “[The Bitter Withy](http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/bitter_withy.htm)” is an English folk song that explains why willow trees rot from the inside out. It’s overtly Christian in the real version, so it’s been edited to fit the Merlin-verse.  
  

  * The advertisement tacked to the wall of the wagon “if it please any man…” is an edited version of a [real medieval ad](https://medievalbooks.nl/2014/12/05/medieval-spam-the-oldest-advertisements-for-books/), the first surviving advertisement in printed publishing history.   

  * Henry’s first little quoted poem is an edited sestina by Dante: ‘[Al poco giorno e al gran cerchio d’ombra](https://aclassen.faculty.arizona.edu/content/ger-312-winter-poetry)’  
  

  * _Pithy, plesaunt and profitable Workes of Maister Shelton, Poete for the Ages, nowe collected and newly published in Full_ is the slightly edited title to a [real work](https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A12291.0001.001?view=toc) by John Skelton from 1568.   
  

  * _The Plowman’s Lament_ is just a Merlin-verse name for [_Piers Plowman_](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43660/43660-h/43660-h.htm), a famous 14th century Middle English allegorical/social satire poem whose protagonist is, fittingly enough, named Will.  
  

  * “The Serpent King at Carr Naeddran” and “The Serpent King And His Sad Pin” are my own inventions, but the lyrics sung by Henry’s pals are a modification of the [real limerick](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Erotic_limericks) “There was an old man of Connaught...”  
  

  * _Curious Calamities_ is my own invention, but its contents draw inspiration from a number of polar exploration accounts, including those discussed in [this article](https://www.unis.no/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Arctic_vol44_no2_Hacquebord.pdf) and this more [modern account](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-most-terrible-polar-exploration-ever-douglas-mawsons-antarctic-journey-82192685/) of an expedition gone catastrophically wrong.  
  

  * Henry’s poem about Millie is an edited version of “[Pied Beauty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_Beauty)” by Gerard Manley Hopkins. It’s one of the few things in here that’s nowhere close to being period appropriate - it was written in 1877.  
  

  * _Natural Histories_ is just Pliny’s _The Natural History_ , and all the associated excerpts are lightly edited versions of passages from that series, which is accessible in full [here](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plin.+Nat.+toc). The authors in the story who argue about _Natural Histories’_ reliability are based on participants in a real debate between 15th century Italy’s Niccolo Leoniceno and Pandolfo Collenuccio, who published a number of pamphlets back and forth attacking or defending Pliny’s credibility.  
  

  * The bit about flaming chickens is true. Per Geis in _Life in a Medieval Village_ : “Simon de Montfort, rebelling against the king, is said to have meditated setting fire to the city by releasing an air force of chickens with flaming brands attached.” I expanded on this a bit, obviously, but I really do feel it is absolutely necessary for everyone in the world to know that “an air force of chickens” was not in fact a thing I made up but a real thought which occurred to a real historical person.  
  

  * The “Fomorrhan riddle” Merlin reads is just Riddle 62 from the [Exeter Book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exeter_Book) (a tenth century anthology of Anglo-Saxon poetry), edited for rhyming purposes. Did you work out the pair of answers?  
  

  * The other little poem in that section is a very slightly edited “[The Winter](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50439/the-winter)” by 14th century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym.   
  

  * The “Cobbes Hill” pamphlet Merlin reads to Will is a compilation of two historical documents. The first few bits are edited excerpts from publications belonging to a group of radical Protestants in 17th century England known as the “Diggers,” who were sort of like...ancestors of modern anarchists, and who really did decide to dig up common land and plant crops upon it for the people. They published a bunch of things, but the doc I pulled from is accessible [here](https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/863/levellers.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y).  
  
The second section is an edited excerpt from “[Discourse on Voluntary Servitude](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Discourse_on_Voluntary_Servitude),” an [essay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_on_Voluntary_Servitude) by sixteenth century French philosopher/judge Étienne De La Boétie, who was another influencer on modern anarchist thought, because Will is, essentially, a burgeoning little anarchist at heart. <3  
  

  * Henry’s song as he drives away is an expanded version of a one-line Old English riddle from the Exeter Book: “There was a wonder on the waves; water turned to bone” (the answer being ice, presumably).  
  

  * The poem in Merlin’s very own book is an edited excerpt from one of the carols in the _Piae_ _Cantiones_ , a 1582 collection of medieval songs. The version I edited is from an 1853 translation/adaptation by John Mason Neale, the full text of which can be found [here](https://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/earth_today_rejoices.htm).



**imbolc:** n/a

And I think that about does it for citations!

**author's note:**

I got into Merlin _very_ late, and actually finished writing this fic before I even watched the last four episodes of Season 5 (aka, before I knew how the series ended). I'm not sure how I managed to go eight years while managing to avoid all spoilers beyond a vague sense of Something Bad, but I did - and while I don't think this has resulted in any glaring inconsistencies, given that this particular story takes place prior to the canon era, if you spot something, that's why. 

My deepest appreciation goes out to the folks who might read this fic, and to everyone who was patient with me while I was writing it. If you've stuck with me through to the end of this thing, thank you. This project was a labor of love, and I had the time of my life working on it, despite the fact that it took me the better part of a year to finish. It was a heck of a fun year, in that sense!

Special thanks go out to my sister, who allowed me to postpone our viewing of the last part of Season 5 for almost an _entire year_ because I was still working on this story and I was afraid that knowing the ending of the series would make me so upset I never wanted to look at this project again. And my eternal gratitude goes out to my ‘net friends, who have been so gracious with my delayed series-finishing and who have always been so careful to protect me from spoilers. Y’all are the best neighbors I could ask for.

much love,

pan <3


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